
Class L 

Book____ 
Copyright^ . 



U&- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




W. E. HARLOW 

Professor of Psychology and Doctor of 
Suggestive Therapeutics 



Price, $1.50 



Mental and Moral 
Therapeutics 



—BY— 

W. E. HARLOW 






^ 



Copyrighted by W. E. Harlow 
Springfield, Mo. 



©CLA253482 



PREFACE 



This volume is a revised and enlarged edition of "Ten 
Lessons in Suggestive Therapeutics," published ten 
years ago when the writer was the president of the Par- 
sons, Kansas, School of Suggestion. The former edition 
was sold at $5.00 per copy with a guarantee, and only 
one copy was ever returned. The matter in that book 
has all been retained in this with a few slight changes. 
Its author has waded through thousands of pages of 
psychic lore since its publication and is unable to find 
much that is new to add to the present volume. It is 
not intended to be exhaustive, but suggestive. It is the 
multum in parvo in mental healing. It is written for the 
average man and is simple, sane, sensible and yet scien- 
tific. It does not pose as a "literary gem." 

The chapters, "The Sum of Mental Healing," "How 
To Live One Hundred Years" and "Psychology In Re- 
ligion, ' ' are the new additions. I am indebted to the fol- 
lowing writers for much of the matter contained herein: 
Thomas J. Hudson, Dr. George C. Pitzer, Dr. H. L. 
Parkyn, Dr. William A. Hammond, Charles Pool Cleaves, 
Dr. Sheerin, Prof. Mower, Prof. Bernheim, Dr. John W. 
Tinder and others. It covers the subjects treated and is 
the cream of all the literature on psychic treatment and 
cognate subjects. Any one, by a little patience and prac- 
tice, can become proficient in its application. A thorough 
mastication, digestion and appropriation of its principles 
will keep the well body well, heal the sick body if it be 
a curable one, and heal and save the sin-sick soul. 

THE AUTHOR. 
December 1, 1909. 



CHAPTER I. 



"As the Creator of the universe has endowed man 
with reason and assigned him a noble and intelligent 
rank in the scale of intellect and moral being — and as 
he has commanded him to use this faculty — so I may 
with justice remark, that he who cannot reason is a fool; 
he who dare not reason, is a coward; he who will not 
reason, is a bigot; but he who can and dare reason, is a 
man. (Dods.) It is by no means an enviable task to 
step aside from the long beaten path of science into the 
unexplored and trackless regions of solitude and silence. 
By so doing and daring to think for myself I am well 
aware that I assume no very enviable position as to re- 
gards popularity. Independent thought and fearless ex- 
pression have ever drawn forth the scoffs and sneers of 
that portion of our race who have adopted, without in- 
vestigation, the scientific opinions of others. I refer to 
those only who have received their ideas from others by 
inheritance, as they did their real estate. For the one 
they never labored, and for the other they never thought. 
Such persons, though professing to be learned, and per- 
chance even claiming to be the guardians of science, are 
nevertheless its greatest enemies; and by exerting their 
influence in favor of old opinions, however absurb, and 
against any innovations, however true, useful, or grand, 
are checking the mighty march of mind. Science com- 
menced its career at the breaking morn of creation, with 
but few passengers on board, and has continued its 
course with increasing speed and growing glory down 
to the present moment. It now travels with the bril- 



— 5- 



liancy and rapidity of the lightning's blaze, and even 
compels the very lightning to speak in a familiar voice 
to man. The chariot of science is destined to continue 
its majestic course, in duration coeval with our globe. 
Still more, it is destined to pass the boundaries of the 
mouldering tomb — to snatch immortality from the iron 
grasp of death and roll on in living grandeur through 
the eternal world gathering new accessions of intellectual 
beauty and unending delight. If no human being had 
dared to hazard the expression of an original thought, 
then nothing in the realms of science would have been 
disclosed by speech, nor penned in books. A dreary, 
barren waste, wrapped in solitude and night, would have 
reigned for human contemplation. It is by daring to 
step aside from the beaten track of tradition, and bring- 
ing forth from the dark arcana of nature into the light 
of day some new truth, that we add our mite to the com- 
mon stock of knowledge already accumulated. He who 
denies us this grand right of our nature is a scientific 
bigot, and has yet to learn that even the school and 
college were only established to discipline the mind for 
action. The truths that God has established inherent in 
nature are not only infinitely diversified, but are at the 
same time immutable and eternal. No possible addition 
can be made to their number, nor is it in the power of 
man to create or annihilate a single truth in the empire 
of nature. They exist, independent of his belief or un- 
belief, and all he can do is to search them out, and bring 
them forth from darkness into the light of day. And he 
who has the magnanimity to do this, so far from being 
opposed and persecuted, should be sustained and en- 
couraged as the benefactor of his race. That the new 
psychology in its application to the cure of diseases 
should meet with some opposition from men of a pe- 
culiar constitution of mind, and a certain degree of 
scientific attainments, is nothing strange. Nor is it at 



-6— 



all miraculous that a few, who are deemed men of 
talents, should oppose and even deride it as a humbug. 
But as genius is supremely higher than talents, so I 
boldly and safely make the declaration that no man of 
genius has ever opposed Suggestive Therapeutics. All 
other sciences in their infancy received from such men a 
like opposition, and upon their founders they freely 
breathed out their derision, scorn, and sneers. Harvey 
discovered the circulation of the blood, and was opposed 
and derided, but Harvey's name stands immortal on the 
records of true fame, and the blood still continues to 
frolic in crimson streams through its living channels, 
while his learned opposers are forgotten. The same can 
be said of Galileo in his discovery of the rotation of the 
globe on its axis; Newton in the discovery of the law of 
gravitation. Pulton was derided, and even men of 
science pointed at him the finger of indignant scorn be- 
cause he declared that steam could move an engine of 
tremendous power and propel vessels of thousands of 
tons burthen against wind and tide. Such has been the 
fate of all sciences in the infancy of their existence. 
The moment they were born into life the battleaxe was 
raised against them, and each in succession has fought 
its way up to manhood. The victory in favor of truth 
has always been sure, and millions of sycophants in the 
contest have perished. How lamentable is the consider- 
ation that there are those in this day of light who, re- 
gardless of the warning voice of past generations, com- 
ing up from ten thousand graves, still shut their ears and 
close their eyes to keep popular with those on whom they 
depend for momentary fame. True fame consists in the 
lofty aspirations after intellectual and moral truth; and 
when these are found and cherished, that so deep will 
be the convictions of duty, sustained by sterling honor, 
that no popularity — no bribes of wealth and splendor — 
no fears of frowns, nor even the hazard of life exposed 



-7— 



to wasting tortures shall deter that man from expressing 
and maintaining such truth. He who does this possesses 
true and righteous fame. Should the scoffers of rising 
science challenge me to produce such an example of true 
fame ever being set on earth, I would point them to one 
perfect specimen on the sacred page. I would point 
them to the Son of Man, in the majesty of whose vir- 
tues, honor and firmness in proclaiming truth, language 
is impoverished, all human description fails, and the 
living light of eloquence is darkened forever. As the 
object of the science of Suggestive Therapeutics to pro- 
duce such mental and moral impressions upon the sick 
and afflicted as shall restore them to health and happi- 
ness, and as this can positively be accomplished upon 
all who can be brought into the psychological state, so 
the vast importance and utility of this science are but 
faintly realized by the public at large — are but dimly 
seen. Even when a person cannot be brought into the 
most perfect psychological state so that a muscle can be 
paralyzed, still we can, in the great majority of cases, 
either cure or greatly benefit the sufferer by physical and 
mental impressions upon his body and mind, provided he 
will faithfully follow our directions. 



CHAPTER II 



The purpose of this chapter is to explain as simply as 
possible the meaning of the word Psychology, and to 
point out the scientific application of the knowledge we 
have gained from the study of the science to all kinds 
and classes of disease. 

Psychology means briefly the science of the mind; a 
knowledge of the power within; and the application of 
this science to the physical ills of the body is known as 
Suggestive Therapeutics. The value of psychology to 
the world at large lies in its power to ameliorate condi- 
tions of disease. It is well to recognize that there are 
powers in the mind of man which will make the healthy 
man more healthy, but the point which will appeal more 
forcibly to a sufferer and an invalid is that by the use 
of psychology we bring into play an active, positive 
force which will make the sick body well by restoring 
the normal or natural conditions. Now the natural con- 
dition of man is health, and without touching here upon 
the vexed question of heredity and hereditary influences 
it may be broadly stated that the old saying, 'As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so he is,' is being constantly 
proven true. If a man believes himself to be sick, he 
will by his own thought produce in himself physical 
changes corresponding to the nature of the disease he 
believes himself to be suffering from. The treatment of 
disease by psychological processes may be summarized 
thus: Thoughts are things; change the thought and 
benefit will ensue. Let us begin at the beginning and 
show what scientific warrant we have for our declaration 



-9— 



that the mind of man is powerful enough, when properly- 
directed, to control certain forms of disease. We can 
follow out our argument without diverging from the 
question as it applies to the healing art. 

It is now many years since the pilgrim in search of 
health made his journey to Lourdes, France, in the hope 
that by the healing grace of the saint he worshipped he 
might be healed of his bodily infirmity. Wonderful in- 
deed, to witness or to read of, is the now yearly pil- 
grimages to that shrine of the halt, the blind, and the 
sick, and still more wonderful to those who are ignorant 
of the principles at work are the remarkable cures which 
result from that journey. It has been estimated that 10 
per cent of the so-called incurable cases have yielded to 
the healing power of the shrine. Is this, then, an evi- 
dence of a miracle? By no means. Among all nations 
and people there are certain localities or certain persons 
credited with the possession of this healing power of 
supernatural origin. Through the efforts of Monseigneur 
de Laval in the year 1670 a precious relic was obtained 
from Carcassone, a town in France ; nothing less, in fact, 
than a notable fragment of a finger bone of Saint Anne 
herself. This relic was conveyed to the church and has 
not ceased to be the object of fervent devotion. The 
letters attesting its authenticity can be seen hanging in 
frames upon the walls of the sacristy. 

Within the past two decades a marvelous efficacy in 
the curing of disease has been found to exist in the 
waters of a spring which rises a few steps behind the 
chapel of Beaupre. 

It matters very little whether the particular " charm " 
which works the cure is in the form of a piece of wood, 
a block of stone, a finger bone of a saint, a glass of con- 
secrated water, or a living being. The point to note is, 
that a very large percentage of the so-called miracles 
are actually wrought, and that, apparently, through per- 



—10— 

sonal contact with the charm. But we find that when a 
piece of ordinary wood was substituted without the 
knowledge of the supplicant for a supposed fragment of 
the true cross in the Geneva Monastery there was no 
abatement of the cures or miracles. "When a piece of 
iron was enclosed in a small case, and held aloft to be 
gazed at by the stricken wretches in search of ease from 
suffering, the results obtained were precisely the same 
as when that case did indeed contain a bone from the 
foot of one of the saints. So that from these and from a 
dozen other known facts of similar import we gather 
this scientific truth. The healing virtue does not rest 
in the relic, but in the attitude of mind of the sufferer. 
In other words, those who were healed were healed by 
the power of their own minds suddenly roused into ac- 
tivity. It may be taken for granted that among those 
unfortunate who made and still make their pilgrimage, 
and who return as sick as when they started, a large 
proportion could be benefited and perhaps restored to 
health by the judicious employment of specific medicines. 
Faith worketh marvels truly, but faith alone is not suf- 
ficient for all things in this materialistic age. In face of 
the fact that some are healed by faith, and some are not, 
theory falls to the ground, and we must deal with the 
facts as we find them. In these cures by faith there is 
no evidence of the transmission of divine power from the 
relic or agent to the sufferer. There is no evidence of a 
miracle. A miracle is something supernatural, some- 
thing beyond the pale of natural law. Do we know of 
any example in which the laws of nature were arbitrarily 
thrust aside? I refer now especially to the miracles of 
healing. Did not the great Healer himself demand that 
in those he healed the conditions of faith, or expectancy 
of relief should be present? How often do we find that 
quality, ' 'faith," the condition, the essential condition, 
upon which the wonder depended! We quote a few ex- 



—11— 

amples, "Thy faith hath saved thee." "According to 
thy faith be it unto you." "0 thou of little faith." "I 
have not found so great a faith." "And he did not many 
miracles there because of their unbelief." It would 
seem then that the condition of mind of the sufferer is a 
very potent factor in establishing or removing a disease. 
In carefully diagnosing the case treated by miracle 
workers, metaphysicians and mental healers of all kinds 
we come upon the important facts. Firstly, they can 
and do cure similar ailments in different people by en- 
tirely different modes of treatments, and in using the 
word "ailments" we do not mean thereby merely hys- 
terical diseases. Secondly, they do not perform a cure 
until the mind of the patient is brought by prayer, com- 
munion, thought, or reading into a condition of hope, 
merging into the conviction of faith, has been estab- 
lished. We know that certain cases which have baffled 
the skill of the duly qualified physician yield to the 
mental treatment of the metaphysician. We know, also, 
that many of these cases which derive no benefit from 
the mental treatment are quickly and permanently cured 
by medicine. 

Is there a reason for this too? Is the virtue in the 
drug? Sometimes, yes; or here again, as in the case of 
the worshiper at the shrine, the virtue may be in the pa- 
tient. He cured himself by the agency of drugs, because 
drugs were, in his case, the strongest suggestion that his 
mind could grasp of benefit to follow. There are certain 
medicines which are a help to the sick, and in their 
physiological action upon all temperaments are uniform 
and salutary. To refuse to employ medicine of any 
kind is the height of folly, and is the weak spot in the 
armor of the mental healer. To refuse to acknowledge 
the power of the mind when properly directed, by 
scientific methods, is the weakness of the duly qualified 
physician, and not all his knowledge of medicine, 



-12— 



anatomy, surgery, and physiology, can compensate for 
his ignorance of phychology. Although the medical pro- 
fession discountenance the simple remedies in the main, 
it must not be supposed that they do not in some in- 
stances make use of the power of suggestion. Let us 
take a case in point: In treating one who has been a 
victim of the morhpine habit, the physician is sometimes 
implored by his patient for just enough morphine to 
make him sleep. "For God's sake," he cries, "just one 
injection to send me to sleep." What course does the 
physician pursue here? To argue would be useless; to 
tell this tortured creature that his mind was all-powerful, 
and could control the suffering of his body, would seem 
like a jest, a mockery. The doctor assents, and gives his 
patient a hypodermic injection into his arm, an injec- 
tion of pure water, which the patient believes to be mor- 
phine. Now observe the force of suggestion. With his 
mind and body racked and tortured by pain, the patient, 
on receiving the injection of water, is convinced that his 
suffering will cease and that he will be compelled to 
sleep. And when this conviction is present the result will 
generally follow. His mind then fortified by suggestion 
asserts its power over the body. It is his mind that 
calms his nerves and soothes his brain; it is his mind 
that sends him to sleep. Thus far then we have pro- 
ceeded in our argument. We have proved that in cer- 
tain cases of abnormal conditions of the body, which is 
disease, the mind is supreme in effecting a cure. Now, 
without detracting, or seeking to detract from the credit 
which is due to all schools of healing, by whatever name 
they may be called, for the great work they are doing 
toward the relief of suffering, let us bear in mind that 
their successes are all due to one fundamental principle 
in human nature, i. e., the power of the mind to help 
itself, and so to help the body. These different schools 
do not create the power; it is there already; it is in the 



-13— 



mind; a part of it which is every man's birthright. This 
power does not depend upon a profession of Christianity, 
or any other faith. It is as perfect in the atheist as in 
the religious fanatic; in the agnostic as in the devotee; 
in the woman as in the man. And as the successes of 
these schools of healing are traceable to one cause, so 
their failure also can be accounted for. Either the pa- 
tient's mind is not properly attuned to the treatment he 
is undergoing; either he has no confidence in the rem- 
edies employed, and therefore he receives no benefit; or 
his disease demanded the use of material medicine. Is 
there no remedy for this state of affairs? Yes, there is a 
remedy, and it is found in the study of Suggestive Thera- 
peutics. Even at the present time there is no school of 
healing which is not based upon the truths of psychology, 
not one which psychology does not embrace and en- 
velope. It is the Arrons rod of medical science; and, 
coupled with the judicious employment of medicines, it 
is more effective in the treatment of disease than any 
other method known to man. Psychology deals directly 
with the mind. There is no muscle or nerve in the human 
body which cannot be brought under the absolute con- 
trol of the mind. Physicians have given their attention 
to the body, and have neglected to cultivate the natural 
force of recuperation and resistance which is inherent 
in every man. Metaphysicians have gone to the other 
extreme, and have despised the weakness of the body, 
refusing to sanction the use of necessary medicines. The 
wise man is he who bends all things to his service in the 
evolution of good. 

In order that you may better understand the modus 
operandi of the law of suggestion, I will first make a 
physiological explanation of our being, which will pre- 
pare the way for a treatise on the psychological powers 
and functions of the mind. We have two distinct brains 
— the cerebrum, with its two hemispheres and six lobes, 



-14^- 



commencing at the frontal part of the skull and occupy- 
ing the greater portion of the cavity ; and the cerebellum, 
which occupies the back portion of the skull. The 
spinal marrow, extending through the vertebrae to the 
bottom of the trunk, is but the continuation of these two 
brains. From the spinal marrow branch out thirty- two 
pairs of nerves, embracing both the nerves of motion and 
those of sensation. From these again branch out others 
and in thousands of ramifications carry out the full 
power of both brains into every part of the system. The 
cerebrum is the great fountain of the voluntary nerves, 
through which the voluntary powers of the mind ever act. 
The cerebellum is the fountain of the involuntary nerves, 
through which the involuntary powers of the mind ever 
act. Though the voluntary and involuntary nerves from 
these two brains seem to blend in the spinal marrow, 
yet they preserve their distinct character, even to their 
final termination in the system, and execute the func- 
tions appertaining to their own office in producing vol- 
untary and involuntary motion. Such is the residence 
of the human mind, which seems to hold its throne in 
the medulla oblongata, at the fountain head of the vol- 
untary and involuntary nerves. From thence the mind, 
by its volitions, controls all the voluntary motions of the 
body, through the cerebrum. At will I move my hands 
in any possible direction I please to handle substances, 
and at will I move my feet to walk. But over the 
throbbings of my heart, the ultimate heaving of my 
lungs, the circulation of my blood, and the digestion of 
food in my stomach, I have no voluntary control. Awake, 
asleep, at home, abroad, the heart continues its motions, 
and the functions of life are executed, whether I will it 
or not. These then receive their motions frOm the in- 
voluntary powers of my mind, acting through the cere- 
bellum. That these are all moved by mind is certain, 
because, take the mind or spirit from the body and all 



-15- 



whether voluntary or involuntary instantly 
cease. We come now to a study of the duality of the 
mind. As man is possessed of two forces, positive and 
negative, and two brains, cerebrum and cerebellum, so 
he is possessed, of two minds, the subjective and the ob- 
jective. The objective mind resides in the cerebrum. It 
is the mind with which we do business; the mind that 
comes, develops with, and finally dies with the physical 
body. It controls as before stated all voluntary mo- 
tion. It is taught to reason by all processes, induction, 
deduction analytic and synthetic. The subjective mind 
is a separate and distinct entity. It may be said to 
occupy the whole human body, especially the cerebellum 
and spinal column. It controls all involuntary motion. 
As it is the subjective with which we have to do in the 
cure of disease and correction of vice, I will here give 
the normal functions of the subjective mind as formu- 
lated by Thomas J. Hudson. 

(1) It is constantly amenable to control by the power 
of suggestion. 

(2) It is incapable of inductive reasoning; can reason 
only by deduction. Inductive reasoning is to first have 
facts, verified, and classified, and then reason from these 
particular facts up to generals. Deductive reasoning, is 
to begin with generals and reason down to particulars. 

(3) It has practically a perfect memory. 

(4) It is the seat of the emotions. Under this head 
we find four minor functions which may be said, three 
of them belong to all animal creation; they are instinc- 
tive emotions as follows: 

(a) Self-preservation. 

(b) Eeproduction. 

(c) Preservation of the offspring. 

(d) Religious worship. These are the only normal 
functions of the soul in its relation to the physical body. 



—16— 

(5) The subjective mind possesses the power to move 
ponderable objects without physical contact; this is wit- 
nessed in spiritism. 

(6) It has the power to communicate and receive 
intelligence otherwise than through the channels of the 
senses. It perceives by intuition which is called 
telepathy. 

(7) Its activity and power are inversely proportion- 
ate to the vigor and healthfulness of the physical organ- 
ism — that is, the nearer death and dissolution we ap- 
proach, the stronger and more active becomes the sub- 
jective mind. 

(8) It absolutely controls the functions, sensations, 
and conditions of the body, when not opposed by the ob- 
jective mind. All of the silent involuntary and vegetative 
functions, nutrition, waste, all secretion and excretion, 
the heart and lungs, and all cell life are positively under 
the complete control of the subjective mind. The sub- 
jective mind never sleeps. The faculty of measuring 
time is inherent in the subjective mind alone. It ac- 
cepts without doubt or hesitation every suggestion made 
to it, no matter how absurd, or incongruous, so long as 
the suggestion does not conflict with the settled convic- 
tions and principles of one's life. This can at any time 
be demonstrated by a simple hypnotic experiment. Hav- 
ing now before us the functions of the two minds, we 
will now consider how to apply suggestion in the cure 
of diseases. The subjective mind being constantly 
amenable to control by the power of suggestion, and con- 
trolling the functions, sensations, and conditions of the 
body, we have simply to place the subject for treatment 
in a psychological state, where the objective mind will 
not oppose us, nor enter into controversy with us; and 
this we do by inducing a hypnosis. Hypnotism, as it is 
called, is a misnomer; it is rather psychotism: which is 
the elevation of the subjective mind above the threshold 



— d7- 



of consciousness, and the partial abeyance of the ob- 
jective mind. When this state has been induced, we 
then proceed to make such suggestions as may fit the 
case under consideration, and which is given in another 
chapter. 



—18— 



CHAPTER III 



THE SUM OF MENTAL HEALING. 
The Method. 

To be or not to be sick — that is the all-prevailing 
question. To enjoy or not to enjoy happiness — is 
another. These subjects appear as if they were mat- 
ters of our own choosing and at our own discretion. 
If this be true, to what extent and by what principle or 
method? The answer lies in proper diet, regular habits, 
plenty of exercise, water and soap, rest and relaxation, 
says the hygienist. In proper medical treatment for ab- 
normal conditions, says the physician. Sickness is not 
normal and entirely unnecessary says the futurist. We 
shall learn, sometime, to avoid it all and live forever. 
Emerson says: " Natural laws which are the angels of 
the Most High and which obey his mandates are rolling 
on the time when sickness shall depart from the body 
and sins from the soul." 'When the child shall die an 
hundred years old.' Is. 65. "I see a glory coming to 
man such as cannot be described by tongue or pen of 
poet or prophet." There is no sin, sickness or death. 
We are neither born nor die; it is all an illusion of 
mortal mind, interposes a certain pseudo philosophy 
which claim to be very scientific and withal Christian. 
Now the truth is, that all of these systems have an ele- 
ment of truth in them and happy is the one who can 
recognize and combine them all with their proper ap- 
plication. It is the height of folly for us to denounce the 
good in any system because, perchance, there may be 



-19— 



many vagaries or incongruities attached to such system. 
On the other hand, it is equally as absurd to claim that 
any one of these methods has reached the ne plus ultra 
stage and that they contain all that is worth knowing 
when, "By their fruits ye shall know them." They all 
make their cures and are all about equal in the propor- 
tion of successes reported. The treatment of any disease 
ought always to be according to the peculiarity and con- 
ditions existing. One condition may require one thing 
and another an entirely different application. We do 
not give a thirsty child dry bread to quench its thrist, 
nor prune our potatoes like we do our grape vines. Just 
so great is the difference between a wound, a broken 
bone, an acute germ disease, a functional derangement 
like many dyspepsias and causes of headaches, an organic 
disease as a leaky heart or tuberculor lung. And just so 
great is the difference between treatment demanded. 

The cause of disease may lie in injury, in a diseased or 
impaired organ, in germ-infection, in overwork or lack 
of work, or in improper diet, or in abnormal mental con- 
ditions as anger or worry. 

The remedy, according to the case, may be surgery, 
antiseptics, internal medicine, diet, rest and relaxation, 
exercise of mind and body, or mental and spiritual 
change ; or several of these may be combined ; or the dis- 
ease may be incurable and only comfort be sought. 

We have now, we trust, cleared away the underbrush 
and rubbish for speaking to those who are interested in 
the influence of the mind upon matters of health and 
disease. The subject is now a live one. It is in the air 
and in the magazines and religious papers. It is being 
discussed in the ministers' meetings. The recent com- 
binations of ministry and medicine, Christianity and 
psychology, the combined diagnosis of the mind and the 
body, as practised at Emmanuel church in Boston by Dr. 
Worcester, and by Bishop Fallows in Chicago, have 



-20- 



quickened interest and questioning. In treating this sub- 
ject I have in mind several kinds of people but partic- 
ularly those who are interested in getting at the root of 
a matter and avoiding the tendency to believe that one 
key will unlock all doors. We live in a world of con- 
sistent law, as we constantly acknowledge by attention 
to hunger, thirst, warmth, comfort and agriculture. We 
believe in the reality of this old universe and that we, 
also, are real, acting in accordance with law. Call it 
matter or what you please, it is a realm of law. 

The first essential thing for a mind to do, if it would 
help the body, is to consent to living up to what it 
knows. If, from childhood, we were taught the neces- 
sity of observing the laws of life and health, of observ- 
ing every call of nature, of the effect of abnormal mental 
states, and then live in harmony with our best knowl- 
edge and co-operate with these laws in the extinction or 
remedy of disease so far as possible, how much healthier, 
happier and freer the world would be. 

The next essential thing is to add to our knowledge of 
these laws of health-food, sanitation, proper breathing, 
exercise, banishment of fear, the habits essential to the 
individual and his condition or station in life. Wherein 
we are ignorant and need to know, the best sources of 
knowledge are scientific books, physicians and trained 
nurses; to which we may add on the side of moral in- 
fluence whatever enlightens or inspires us in will, moral 
choice and action for the promotion of health. 

We are now, I trust, prepared to speak on our specific 
subject, namely: the large class of disorders in which 
there is seldom organic disease, often no recognized abuse 
of health, but in which there is real ailment, much suffer- 
ing — aiervous disorders and functional derangements as- 
sociated with the same. Even of this class the variety is 
great: Depression, general invalidism, hysteria, fixed 
belief in a supposed disease, religious melancholia, sui- 



—21- 



cidal mania, sleeplessness, worry and its results, and 
symptoms that persistently recur by habit after the pa- 
tient has otherwise every evidence of health. Many of 
these conditions are due to mental influence affecting 
bodily functions through the nervous system ; and in turn 
the bodily ills distress the mind. This influence called 
auto-suggestion, we simply turn about and put to advan- 
tage. We say "I will not be as I am, feel as I feel, or 
expect what I am dolefully inclined to expect, and, as far 
as this flock of persistent recurring ideas that come to 
torture me — out with them. Fling up the windows let 
in the light and air. "Asa man thinketh in his heart so 
is he." "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear 
but of a sound mind. ' ' I can think other thoughts. I can 
smile, not the brazen smile that won't come off, but the 
smile that comes from the heart. If you are living in the 
light of God's spiritual law, look up, "You can do all 
things through Christ who strengthens you." And, what- 
ever may happen, I can prove that all things work to- 
gether for good to them that love the Lord, and who are 
called according to his purpose." This is not mere sen- 
timent nor theory, nor disregard of law or conditions, 
but it does amount to a new mental, spiritual and phy- 
sical life, a different personality, and it is surprising 
when we have done our best to oblige nature through 
observing her laws of health, how much the new mental 
attitude cures if the case be curable, cheers and palliates 
if it be not. Let it be understood here, that what we call 
nature's laws are but God's laws in action. No system 
of Philosophy that disregards God as the maker of our 
bodies and giver of our spirits, and the law he has given 
for their guidance, can ever be entertained as scientific. 
That inherent entity we call soul, mind, or spirit which 
inhabits this temple of clay, came from God, and while 
resident in the body has certain physical functions to 
perform. To tune our minds with the Infinite, to think 



—22- 



his thoughts, to serve his purpose, to do his will, must 
be the mission of him who would be happy, healthy and 
long lived. This does not imply special acts of provi- 
dence nor miracle-working powers, but a life of harmony, 
light, love, liberty, and a conformity to law, the higher 
law, which alone can give life. "I am come that ye 
might have life and that ye might have it more abund- 
antly." If we do not have it, it is because we will not. 
We can have what we want that is rational and right if 
we want it hard enough. How careful then to want the 
right, and how important to want it hard. Such is auto- 
suggestion. 

The Limits of Mind Cure. 

Mtind cure, like all other cures, has its limitations. 
This must not be disregarded. To keep this fact in 
memory — not always in mind — will save a good thing 
from discredit, and not deprive us of its benefits. 
High expectation, abundant cheer and prayer pro- 
mote its efficacy. But no enthusiasm, remarkable 
success, or misunderstanding of true prayerfulness should 
lead us to forget that we are in a world of law — 
God's law. The denial of that fact and refusal to 
recognize the limitations of faith cure is the error 
and the weakness of Christian Science. There is 
danger that too much will be expected of mind cure 
even in its own sphere. Dr. Crooker, in the Christian 
Register, anticipates a resultant crop of new ills. These 
will come through disregard of the common needs of 
rest, change, sleep and sufficient or proper food. We 
cannot live on ''faith alone" nor escape ill-effects of 
over-long work. This, in a measure, has been -the mis- 
take of all schools of healing, in not recognizing their 
limitations. Mind cure defeats itself if we expect too 
much of mind or body in extent of work. Work, don't 
worry, men say ; but worry is often a result of overwork. 



—23— 

The emotions are blamed when it is work that is slaying 
by proxy. We must distinguish the cases. Some need 
less work to allay the mental disturbances; some should 
dispense with the worry and should work on; some need 
more occupation. Many an optimist and Christian carries 
hard work cheerfully and without worry or loss of in- 
terest. But if the matter is overdone, subtle changes 
come — memory, judgment, equanimity fail, nerve centers 
lose vitality, the heart is weakened and dust proves dust 
very suddenly. Preachers and other professional men 
who are continually pitched to a high nerve tension have 
found this true. The most difficult thing I have found 
with patients under mind cure treatment is, that not- 
withstanding every other remedy they may have tried 
and proven a failure, they expect this to work a miracle, 
or accomplish the desired results in a marvelously short 
time. It is hard to get some to understand that it is a 
growth and that they must make haste slowly. It is like 
knitting a broken limb. There are material changes to 
take place in the system, and sudden buoyancy is to be 
used carefully, like splints and crutches. I have ob- 
served in my own case how will can spur body and mind 
to overwork and still maintain good cheer for many 
months. Then came a peculiar degeneration that may be 
called will-fatigue. The self-directing power, choice, 
volition, desire to act, became very flat and languid. It 
is a law of the body's labratory, more stringent in some 
bodies than others, that periods of sheer idleness are 
necessary. Some of the busiest of people have kept 
health by one day weekly in bed or in absolute listless- 
ness. To get the best results "we must remember the 
Sabbath day to keep it holy" or take a "day off." Dr. 
Richard C. Cabot, in an address at the South Congrega- 
tional Church in Boston, says, "There is no such a thing 
as the cure of organic disease by mental means." I 
would ask the worthy doctor how he knows ? What does 



-24— 



he call organic disease? Does he mean to replace a dis- 
eased tubercular lung, or eye that is gone from its socket, 
or finger or limb that is lost ? If this is organic and what 
he means, I would ask, whoever claimed so much for the 
mind? Did medicine ever accomplish an organic change? 
If so, be specific and state when and how? We would 
not denounce or discard all material remedies, but who 
can fathom the system and tell us just how much real 
virtue there remains in them if it were possible to elim- 
inate the part the mind plays in the cure of every dis- 
ease ? This I do know, that some tumors, incipient cancers 
and all manner of goiters can be cured by the mental 
method, for I have plenty of living witnesses to attest 
this fact, and after every other remedy had failed. Why 
are those who are so radical in their criticism and de- 
nunciation of suggestion, who practice only with ma- 
terial means, so particular that their patients have con- 
fidence in them and their ability to treat them? What 
is confidence but faith manifested in trust, and where 
is it found but in the mind? "The legs of the lame are 
not equal." The reason more marvelous results are not 
obtained and so many failures reported by mental 
methods, are due to the materialistic age in which we 
live and lack of proper mental conditions. Children are 
taught from infancy to depend upon something they can 
see, taste, smell or feel, so that "as the twig is inclined 
the tree is bent." While we recognize the limits of the 
mind under present conditions, if the conditions were 
changed it might prove all but limitless, perhaps not so 
much in the cure of all diseases as the prevention of 
them. All other animals observe the laws concerning 
them but man. When will he ever learn the universal 
principle, true in every realm, that "Whatsoever a man 
soweth, that shall he also reap." God will not be mocked, 
neither by our ignorance or wilful malicious transgres- 
sion of his laws. 



—25— 

The Basis of Mental Healing. 

The basis of mental healing is clearest to the 
biologist and psychologist, yet the intelligent lay 
stndent can understand it pretty well; much of it 
is common knowledge. The processes of the body are 
all under the control of the nervous system, which, 
in turn, is under the control of the sub-conscious 
mind. It is entirely through the nervous system and the 
blood that life persists and all illness remedied, what- 
ever the means of mind, medicine or food. Digestion, 
assimilation, elimination of waste, tearing down and 
building up, circulation and respiration "take care of 
themselves" through the action of the subjective mind. 
Now, certain mental conditions effect these processes. 
Fear parches the mouth by arresting the flow of saliva, 
tightens the throat of the boy who dreads to speak his 
piece. Grief destroys appetite by checking digestion, as- 
similation, the demand for food. A fit of bitter anger 
will, in a nursing mother, poison the innocent babe with 
her milk. A severe abnormal mental state, though of 
short duration, will kill the tissue, destroy the corpucles 
in the blood and quench the flow of vital force through 
the nervous system. "Worry, hate, fear, and all the multi- 
tude of adverse and negative mental states are mothers 
of unnumbered ills. On the other hand, joy and pleasant 
associations quicken appetite, give strength and firmness 
to the heart's beat. We blush, pale or perspire under 
certain emotions. The heart palpitates, hesitates or even 
fails under sudden shocks of grief or joy. Why call it 
more miraculous when the suggestive influence of the 
higher, finer, purer emotions and thoughts, acting 
through and by the nervous system, causes this brood of 
self-created or self-sustained ills to disappear, exerts 
marked influence in the improvement of many other ill- 
nesses, and wonderfully preserves the health? The 
greater part of the mind cures wrought under any name 



-26- 



— and they are legion — are of that class in which the 
mind, through the vaso-motor nervous system, makes 
rapid changes in the secretions and stimulates laggard 
forces to action. Many cases demand more time and pa- 
tience from the nature of the disorder and the suscep- 
tibility of the patient. For example — I took goiters off 
two young ladies' throats in two treatments each, while 
on an older lady with goitre of fifteen years standing I 
spent three months and successfully cured. If any cure 
whatever is wrought mark this: it is not through belief 
or proving that the illness was imaginary. It is because 
thought, belief, resolution, expectation, good cheer, so 
long as our conscious life dwells in the body, send from 
the brain currents of force that play along these material 
nerves, that, fine as they are, are real substance, as much 
so as the muscles, and are of much tougher fiber than 
some parts of the flesh. I say this, recognizing that sub- 
stance is a combination of forces acting by law. It is 
very real and law-abiding. If mental influence helps the 
consumptive to recover and the diseased lung to heal, it 
is because hope and determination to recover stimulates 
the nerves to take up the job of digestion, assimilation 
and repair, and fit the blood for germ destruction. But 
no mental influence will do what is not provided for in 
this nervous system and its laws. To do more is as much 
out of the power of mind-cure as to put out a fire or heal 
the broken limb of a hickory tree. With these facts in 
mind it is easier to explain cures and accomplish cures. 
The old method of curing by doses of "Magnetized 
water" was seldom successful and only when the patient 
had reached a stage of expectation. Hope, cheer and an- 
ticipation quickened and set restorative processes at 
work. A Manchester man, rubbing ink on his face in the 
dark instead of toothache lotion, ceased to dread the 
sleepless, torturing night, and the pain had not sufficient 
cause to continue in the presence of such satisfaction. In 



-27- 



severer cases the ink might have failed. Another man 
awoke one night gasping for breath, and grabbing his 
boot by the bedside hurled it through (as he supposed) 
the window. With now a good breath of fresh air, he 
soon fell asleep, which restful and refreshing state con- 
tinued till the sun arose and disclosed to him the window 
intact and a large mirror smashed. 



-28— 



CHAPTER IV. 



"THERE IS NO VALID PHYSIOLOGICAL REASON 
WHY MANKIND SHOULD NOT DRIVE OLD FATHER 
TIME DOWN THE HIGHWAY OP LIFE TO BEYOND 
THE HUNDRED YEAR MARK. THE SO-CALLED 
LAW THAT FIXES MAN'S TENURE UPON THE 
EARTH AT THREESCORE AND TEN HAS NO DI- 
VINE AUTHORITY. WE MAY AS WELL LIVE ONE 
HUNDRED YEARS AS FIFTY."— Wm. A. HAM- 
MOND, Mi. D. 



HOW TO LIVE ONE HUNDRED YEARS. 

How would you, brother, or you, sister, like to round 
out a full century of life upon this war-worn old planet? 
How would you like to defer that apparently inevitable 
meeting with the grim specter until — let us see, you were 
born in 1865, you say — then until 1965? 

It is an attractive idea is it not ? And the chief at- 
traction lies in its possibility. Of course you, like every- 
one else, have somewhere back in your sub-consciousness 
the firmly implanted conviction that threescore and ten 
is the last notch on the mortal gun, but that, in the light 
of recent knowledge, seems to have been superseded. 

No less an authority than the eminent physiologist, 
Prof. William Alexander Hammond has asserted, that he 
can conceive of no good reason, spiritual or material, 
why mankind should not live a hundred years; that in 
all his manifold scientific investigations into the human 
structure he has yet to find one physiological fact that 



—29— 

compels us to surrender our material being at the end 
of any definite period. He confesses with some awe that 
the science of life has little to do with time and that the 
great cause of all things, so far as thorough investigation 
shows, has never placed a limit upon its effect, i. e., 
mankind. 

It was pointed out to Dr. Hammond that we have "di- 
vine authority" for but threescore and ten years of mor- 
tal existence, to which the scientist replied that he knew 
of no such literal interpretation, asserting further that 
careful Bible students are agreed that such a limit is 
purely a man made hypothesis and comes from sheer ig- 
norance of the actual reading and elucidation of the 
truth. He therefore emphasized his assertion that we 
have no recognized authority for dying off, and in this 
he is supported by many eminent men, such as Profs. 
Metchnikoff of Paris, Ray Lankester of Berlin, Bains of 
London and many others. 

Dying Only a Habit. 

There is no reason why we should die at threescore 
and ten, save that for some reason we have made up our 
minds to do so, and many stout persons have refused to 
be bound by any such material law and have gone on 
living despite it. Habit is a dreadful thing and so 
firmly implanted has become the idea of death that we 
supinely follow the prevailing fashion and drop off just 
when our advancing years should make us the most use- 
ful. Metchnikoff in Paris has scolded us bitterly for fol- 
lowing the style in dying and has in some measure a 
sound base for his vituperation, while other men who 
have delved and dug into nature's laws assert that with 
our improved methods of life there is no good reason 
why we should not go on living so long as we find pleas- 
ure in the feat. 

Perhaps no period in the world's history has been so 



—30— 

replete with achievement as has been the last fifty years, 
and each advance has added a few more years to our 
span. Do you remember when you were a boy or a girl 
how you looked upon the tottering greybeard and learned 
with awe that his halting step and bent frame were due 
to the awful weight of his fifty years? Look about you 
now at the men of fifty or sixty if you will. Observe the 
women and it pleases you. Bless you, they are not old; 
they are just beginning to live. Here is Mme. Sarah 
Bernhardt, for example, turning her sixty-sixth year. 
She is a young woman. Observe Queen Alexander of 
England, a woman of sixty-five, and see the beauty and 
grace of her. Old? Pooh, they are young women. Grad- 
ually we are eliminating the so-called accidents of life, 
and with each elimination we increase the tally of the 
years. "We know what sanitation means; we have un- 
derstood the value of prophylaxis or prevention, and we 
kill the incipient contagion in its infancy. In fact, ac- 
cident is rapidly changing its complexion and losing its 
significance. Within a few years the dictionaries will 
have a new definition, thus: Accident — A synonym for 
carelessness; in olden times used to describe some event 
or casualty alleged to proceed from unknown or unseen 
causes. (Obsolete.) 

Human life has been steadily lengthening as the cen- 
turies marched onward, and our average space of life is 
over double what it was Hve hundred years ago. For 
instance, to make it quite clear, imagine a thousand per- 
sons born in the year 1066, when William the Norman in- 
vaded and conquered England. Of that thousand the 
average length of life of each individual may be placed 
at twenty-two years. Some may have lived to seventy, 
and some may have died at birth, but the average was 
twenty-two years. In this present day, on the same basis, 
a thousand persons born in 1880 or 1890, we will say, 
would have lived an average life of forty-six years. In- 



-31— 



dividual instances may have reached ninety years, but a 
greater proportion lived to riper ages than formerly. So 
it is that each year that goes by, through advancement 
of knowledge, adds its trine to the sum total, and now in 
this decade we are striding forward more rapidly than 
ever before. 

Illness To Be a Crime. 

We know now that there are physical things we must 
not do, just as there are legal matters that control our 
moral actions. Soon it will be a punishable offense to 
have tuberculosis or typhoid or scarlet fever or mumps 
or housemaid's knee or anything you please. The grand 
jury of health will return an indictment against the vic- 
tim of his or her own carelessness, and he or she will be 
dealt with according to law. The health police will ar- 
rest upon warrant, produce evidence to convict, and in 
the Third Federal Health Court Justice Carmichael, or 
whatever his name will be, will sentence the invalid to 
so many days, weeks or months at hard labor. Careless- 
ness in health will be as bad in the eyes of the law as 
carelessness in action. The chronic offender against the 
laws of hygiene will receive the same treatment as the 
man who carries a revolver or the railroad trainman who 
forgets to observe a signal or to turn a switch. 

We have now learned that medicine is useless in 
tuberculosis and that, according to the most eminent au- 
thorities, God's air and sunlight and the products of 
the earth are the only cure. Its prevention is simple, 
and, while it may be argued that many persons are ig- 
norant of these rules of prevention, it is a prime factor in 
all law that ignorance excuses no one. It is as great a 
crime to spread contagion as it is to poison a well. In 
New Orleans it is a punishable crime to leave a tank or 
water barrel unscreened so that mosquitoes may get in 
and breed, for mosquitoes alone can spread yellow fever 



—32— 

and malaria. And so it will be gradually with all other 
things. A man who contracts typhoid is an offender, for 
he could have prevented it, or will soon be in a position 
to do so. Ptomaine poisoning should be an unknown 
quantity and could be tomorrow if human beings were 
not grossly careless. Food can be prepared that is ab- 
solutely wholesome and pure, and it is being prepared in 
that condition, despite silly legislation to prevent 
progress in this direction. If the housewife is so ignor- 
ant of her duties that she deliberately lays herself or her 
family open to it, it is the function of the law to take 
cognizance of her case, and so with a multitude of ills 
and so-called accidents. 

There Is No Fate. 

If you want to live a hundred years you must have 
knowledge, and with that knowledge you may accom- 
plish your desire. It is not enough to sit down supinely 
and say that you must accept the dictum of fate, for 
there is no such thing as fate. Follow the laws of nature 
and resent and oppose anything that sets up a claim to 
deny you your right. Eat proper food that can contain 
no elements of disease, that has been scientifically pre- 
pared, live a life of cleanliness and attack at once any 
evil that comes your way. Does your grocer sell you 
food that bears no guaranty of safety? Eefuse to accept 
it. Insist upon a proper statement of contents upon the 
label, and do not be deceived by wholesale unauthorized 
statements that inform you wrongly and lull the con- 
sumer into dangerous false security. Does your neigh- 
bor fail to comply with the laws of well being? Correct 
him. Revise your mode of life. Be on the watch for evil 
things and work for your fellow's health as well as your 
own, for a chain is no stronger than its weakest link and 
his carelessness or ignorance may blast your chance for 
life. 



—33- 



Worry Worse Than Disease. 

In the light of the most recent science, then, it may be 
set down as a prime rule that worry kills more human 
beings than disease and that back of nearly all of our 
woes is the fact of fear. Think of the 2,000 needlessly 
sacrificed lives each day and what we are doing to pre- 
vent them. Consider the 7,000 yearly cases of infantile 
paralysis in New York alone and what is not being done 
to stop that slaughter of the innocents. And think you 
also what means the work of the physician, the surgeon, 
the great hospital. All these are agents after the fact, 
and what we need are sentinels who will act before the 
catastrophe. How much better to prevent a fire than to 
extinguish a conflagration. 

The extension of human life beyond what is erron- 
eously believed to be the allotted span is no new thing 
by any means, for it has occupied the attention of ad- 
vanced thinkers for all time. Going backward one may 
find records of such attempts that reach far into the his- 
tory that antedates the Christian era. The chief feature 
of scientific experiment in the middle ages was the 
search for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, 
the former being the idea that would transmute baser 
metals into gold and the later the medicine that would 
prolong life indefinitely. The old Rosicrucians were for 
a time believed to be in possession of both. The famous 
Old Parr of history enjoyed during many years a reputa- 
tion for having discovered the elixir. Ponce de Leon 
spent a lifetime in his world quest for the spring of life, 
and the thousands that have given up their lives to such 
research are not numbered. 

How Long Should We Live? 

In answer to the above question, the average modern 
theologian would say: " three score years and ten, and 
if by reason of strength they be forescore, yet are they 



-34^- 



all labor and sorrow. ' ' Now, this is based, as many other 
theories are, on a misunderstanding of the text. The 
91st Psalm in which this passage is found, is ascribed to 
Moses, who was not limiting the life of man, as many 
suppose, but simply stating an historical truth of the 
generations then living. He led Israel out of Egypt into 
the Wilderness, and the number of men who were old 
enough to carry arms and be soldiers were about six 
hundred thousand. These must have averaged thirty or 
more years of age. Putting the forty years of their wan- 
derings in the Wilderness and we have seventy, which 
they lived, for all but two died without seeing the prom- 
ised land. They died for disobedience. They violated 
law, God's law, and reaped what they sowed just as we 
are doing today. God said by the mouth of Isaiah the 
prophet that in the reign of Christ that one of the bless- 
ings of the Christian Era would be "that the child should 
die an hundred years old," and that "the days of a man 
should be the days of a tree." It was ignorance that 
caused the first sin that brought death to the race, and 
"the god of this world" is determined to "blind our 
eyes lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should 
shine in unto them." I am persuaded that if we had the 
knowledge of all the laws of life and health and would 
observe them that we would live several hundred years 
again. Man, the highest and most complex of all God's 
handiwork, created for his glory, capable of adapting 
himself to his ever- changing environments, and only liv- 
ing an average of forty years, is unthinkable in the light 
of nature, reason or revelation. Every other animal lives 
from five to ten times the years it takes it to mature, but 
man, and they were made for his use and put under his 
dominion. No theory will explain it except that they 
keep the law governing them and man violates it. The 
preachers are largely responsible for the thought, in 
funerals, where the good Lord is charged with "having 



435 — 



pleased, to remove the spirit from the body," and 
thus afflict some member of the family to bring them to 
repentance or make them more faithful in service. The 
lodges take it up and "whereas, it has pleased the Ruler 
of the Universe to remove from the body of our deceased 
brother the spirit that inhabited it, etc., therefore be it 
resolved, etc." 

The first promise was, that we should live long in the 
land, and the Lord doth not delight in the death of any. 
We have forgotten the purpose for which we are created 
and the glory of God does not enter into the minds of but 
few. "The love of pleasure and the deceitfulness of 
riches, choke out the seed of the Kingdom. We are con- 
ceived, born and live a few short years in sin, strung up 
to the highest possible nerve tension, until, it is estimated 
that, only two in a million die a natural death. A man 
cannot get thoroughly prepared for life's duties before 
thirty, and at our present average he only has ten left to 
accomplish his purpose and fulfill his mission. This is 
not of God. I cannot believe it. One poor old half negro 
and half Indian woman lives at this date in Clinton, 
Iowa, who claims she is 150 years old and remembers, 
distinctly, Washington and his army. If one so ignorant 
of science, led only by natural instinct, largely, can live 
so long, why ought not the intelligence of this generation 
properly applied, carry us up to two hundred or more 
years. If, as in olden times, men were referred to the 
ant, may we not well look to the larger animal of today, 
learn its ways and be wise? Is life worth living? Then 
learn its laws and live. As the ceremonial laws of Israel 
was based upon the Ten Commandments, which was their 
constitution, so we may give here in brief your constitu- 
tion or ten commandments to health, happiness and long 
life. 

I. BREATHE PLENTY OF PURE, UNCONTAM- 
INATED AIR. Adam was not a "living soul" until God 



—36— 

" breathed into him the breath of life." When we cease 
to breathe we die. 

II. DRINK PLENTY OF PURE WATER. Three- 
fourths of the earth is water, and the same proportion or 
more of the body is composed of fluids. The digestive 
organs refuse to perform their functions if the secre- 
tions are stunted. 

III. EAT PURE, NUTRITIOUS AND DIGESTIBLE 
FOOD. Eat at regular intervals and not more than the 
system can assimilate. Eat slowly and masticate your 
food well. 

IV. TAKE PLENTY OF OUTDOOR PHYSICAL 
EXERCISE, DAILY. 

V. AVOID, AS FAR AS POSSIBLE, STIMULANTS 
OF ALL KINDS. 

VI. NEVER PERMIT YOURSELF TO CONTEM- 
PLATE DISEASE IN ANY OF ITS FORMS FOR THE 
MENTAL ATTITUDE IS A FRUITFUL SOURCE OF 
HARM. 

VII. DON'T WORRY OVER YOUR OWN OR 
OTHER'S TROUBLES, and banish all thoughts of fear. 

VIII. OBSERVE WITH SCRUPULOUS CARE AND 
REGULARITY EVERY CALL OF NATURE. 

IX. GET PLENTY OF SLEEP AND RELAXATION, 
DAILY. 

X. CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF THOUGHT THAT 
THERE IS NO REASON WHY YOU SHOULD DIE 
UHTIL YOU ARE READY TO DO SO. Strive to realize 
that the habit of death at any definite period is wholly 
a false belief and has no authority for its existence. 

Read these commandments over and over, commit 
them to memory, practice them persistently, not one 



—37— 

of them must be broken if you would live long, healthy 
and happy. He that breaketh the least of these com- 
mandments and teacheth men to do so will not live out 
his days, nor enjoy the few he does live. If there be 
any other commandment it is contained in this: Love 
the good, the true and beautiful and live to make others 
so. Quit singing that doleful lay "This world's a wilder- 
ness of woe, this world is not my home," but change the 
music, melody and meter to "Somebody did a golden 
deed, proving himself a friend in need; somebody sang 
a cheerful song, brightening the skies the whole day 
long; somebody thought 'tis sweet to live, willingly 
said, 'I'm glad to give'; somebody fought a valiant fight, 
bravely he lived to shield the right. 

"Was that somebody you? Was that somebody you?" 
A habit good or bad is a hard thing to break some- 
times, hence the importance of fixing good habits. As 
habits are the results of actions and actions the results 
of thought, how carefully we should guard the matter. 
If you think poverty, disease and death, you attract to 
you others who think on the same plane, thus creating 
environments that are not conducive to health happi- 
ness and long life. A man is not what he thinks he is, 
but what he thinks. "As a man thinketh in his heart so 
is he" is not only a scriptural truth, but a scientific dem- 
onstratable fact. It is the man who says I will, I can, I 
must, that succeeds in any undertaking in life. He 
knows no such words as can't, doubt, fear and try. Don't 
follow in the wake of the procession, be a leader. 
Breathe a long full breath of God's pure air, lift up your 
head and be somebody and see how soon others with like 
thought and characteristics will flock around you. The 
whole atmosphere of your life will be changed. Your as- 
sociations will add strength and courage to you in the 
great battle of life and with the Psalmist you can sing 
"Man is wonderfully and fearfully made." 



—38— 



CHAPTER V. 



HYPNOTISM. 

We now come to the study of how to induce hypnosis, 
and it is my purpose to set forth in these chapters the 
very best results of my research among all the best au- 
thors who have so ably written upon this science, among 
whom I may mention Dr. Albert Mloll, Dr. Bernheim, Dr. 
Pitzer, Dr. Wetterstrand, Thomas J. Hudson, Meacham, 
Prof. Harriden, J. B. Dods and others. These are the 
representative authors on this subject, the tower above 
all others who have given us the benefit of their knowl- 
edge. You may rest assured that you can find nothing 
better than these lessons if you were to read all the 
books printed. I give you just what you need to know, 
and all there is to the subject. Besides the results of 
my research in literature, I give you my own experience 
and practice, covering a period of more than twenty 
years. Follow these instructions faithfully and your 
success is as sure as the law of gravity. I have already 
defined hypnotism in Chapter II, which no other work 
on hypnotism that I have seen has ever done. . When 
you consider that the subjective mind is incapable of 
controversial argument, you will at once understand 
that necessary conditions is a vital point in, inducing 
hypnosis, especially the first time. There are but few 
people of sound mind and who will submit but that can 
be hypnotized under favorable conditions. Children un- 
der three years of age are not susceptible, and very 
rarely under five or six years of age. I succeeded in 



-39— 



hypnotizing one child not quite four years old, but she 
was exceptionally bright for one of her years. Never 
waste your time on a person who is under the influence 
of alcohol or morphine, or who has not full control of his 
reason. Some people, in their ignorance, imagine that 
only "weak-minded people" or children can be hyp- 
notized. This is false. Age does not make much differ- 
ence, while the superior intellectual person is far to be 
desired. You cannot hypnotize an idiot. It is sometimes 
difficult to induce a hypnosis during intense pain, unless 
the person has often been placed in that state. Your 
first subject should be an "old subject," that is one who 
has been hypnotized. If you cannot get such a one to 
begin with, get a stranger, if possible, who is willing to 
be hypnotized by you, as your friends might not have 
confidence in your ability. What you most need, as an 
operator, is confidence. Never get rattled or scared, as 
there is nothing to cause alarm. Learn to control your- 
self, and you will have no difficulty in controlling others. 
Always give your subject to be hypnotized to understand 
before you begin on him, that you are perfectly qualified 
to take care of him, and there is no question but what 
you can hypnotize him with perfect ease. Should you 
fail, give him to understand that it is his fault, and not 
yours, and that the next time, he can and will submit 
better, and you will have no trouble. Sometimes you 
will find people you will fail on though they be ever so 
willing, and with all confidence in your ability. Some- 
times the difficulty is a subjective scepticism, or fear, but 
it is most likely to be a failure to be able to concentrate 
their minds on any one thing. Assure your subject that 
he will experience nothing strange or unusual, and that 
he will always be conscious of what you say to him. 
Some, in fact, most people have an idea that they will 
lose consciousness, and perhaps never wake up, which is 
all due to their ignorance of the science, and you should 



—40— 

always assure them to the contrary. Never allow any- 
one present wihen you are to hypnotize a subject the first 
time, who openly avows himself sceptical on hypnotism. 
He may thwart your efforts. Allow no levity, or foolish- 
ness either in the subject or others, who may be present. 
Have your subject either recline on a couch, or sit in a 
comfortable rocking chair in such a position as to relax 
himself completely from head to foot. Then you may 
proceed to hypnotize him by any of the following meth- 
ods, which are the best known, and most used, by all 
expert hypnotists in the land. There are three distinct 
schools, and I give you all their methods. I mention 
first the Braid method, which is considered the quickest, 
and when coupled with the Nancy process (suggestion) 
the surest and best. It is fixation of gaze. Take a coin 
or any other bright object, such as a button covered with 
tin foil, hold it about ten inches in front and as high 
above the eyes as your subject can see it, tell him to 
keep his eyes fixed on the object, and to not bat or wink 
the eyes, and that he will soon go to sleep. Hold the 
object yourself in the right hand, and your left hand on 
his head. Keep your eyes on his, and when you see any 
symptoms of sleep you should at once take advantage of 
it by making some such remarks as these: "Your eyes 
are getting heavy now ; you will soon go into a pleasant, 
relaxed and comfortable sleep; breathe deep and reg- 
ular ; keep your eyes fixed ; think only of sleep ; now the 
lids are heavy; your eyes are tired; you will soon be 
sound asleep; your thoughts will become more and more 
confused; your arms and hands are becoming drowsy; 
your eyes are closing, closing." After he has looked for 
about two minutes, if the eyes do not begin to droop and 
show signs of closing, you should then gradually lower 
the object slowly, all the time suggesting that his eyes 
are closing, and that he is going to sleep. If, as will 
sometimes happen, his eyes do not close as you lower the 



—41— 

object, then with, the left hand, which is on his head, 
close his eyes with your thumb and forefinger and let 
them remain for a minute or two lightly resting on the 
closed eyes. For the first minute keep on making sug- 
gestions, then remove the hand from the eyes, and 
make a few light passes from the forehead to the tips of 
the fingers, suggesting that he is now in a very sound 
sleep. Say to him, "You are now fast asleep from 
head to foot; your eyes are fast closed; you will sleep 
till I wake you up ; nothing will disturb or wake you ; 
you will pay attention to me and do as I tell you; your 
eyes are stuck tight; you cannot open them; you may 
think you can but you cannot; you may try your best; 
you cannot do it; try, try hard." If he cannot open 
them, you can then raise his arm, and after making a 
few passes from the shoulder to the tips of the fingers, 
and at the same time suggesting that it is stiff and that 
he cannot put it down, you will find that in a large 
numjber of cases that such will be the case. If you de- 
sire to have your subject do something funny, and the 
hypnosis has been induced merely for experiment and 
entertainment, you are now ready to proceed, by sug- 
gesting to him your desires. If for therapeutical pur- 
poses, let him sleep ten or fifteen minutes before making 
your suggestions, as he will pass into a deeper sleep, 
which for the best results is always desirable. Another 
and very successful method is to use your eye instead of 
a bright object; but you must practice fixing your eyes 
on some object, so that you can look for at least five 
minutes without either blurring your vision, or batting 
your eyes, or allowing them to water. Never stare, but 
with a firm and determined look, take your subject by the 
hand with a slight pressure on the median nerve with 
the thumib of your right hand, and the left resting on the 
head, look at each other's right eye, and use the same 
suggestion as in the preceding method. A simple and 



easy method which I have used with good results, and 
especially for nervous people, is to have them lie down 
on a couch, where you can sit over them, and back well, 
so that to see your eye they will be compelled to turn 
their eyes back as far as possible; have them relax well, 
take their right hand in yours, with your left on their 
head, and say to them, "Now look at my right eye, 
and keep looking at it while I talk." Then say, "I am 
going to count, and when I count one you will close your 
eyes, and when I count two you will open them and look 
me straight in the eyes, now pay attention and don't 
move your eyes till I count, now, one." After you have 
counted slowly for, say up to ten, let his eyes be closed 
longer than they are open, and all the time they are 
closed make suggestions, such as "you will think of 
nothing but sleep ; your eyes are getting heavy ; you will 
find it difficult to open themj now. ' ' Keep up the count, 
giving plenty of time and suggestions, and they will soon 
be unable to open their eyes. 

I will now give the Messmer method. Seat your sub- 
ject in a comfortable chair, take your position imme- 
diately in front of him, raise your hands, and move 
them downwards, with the palms toward him, from the 
top of the head to about the pit of the stomach, at the 
distance from two to four inches. As soon as your hands 
come to the lowest part of the stroke, carry them with a 
wide sweep and outspread arms up over the subject's 
head, and repeat the same movements until he goes to 
sleep, which generally requires about ten minutes. 
Hypnotism as practiced by the Nancy school, may stand 
as the representative of mental treatment of disease by 
purely oral suggestions. The following extract from 
Prof. Bernheim's able work on Suggestive Therapeutics 
embraces the essential features of the method of induc- 
ing sleep practiced by that school: "I begin by saying 
to the patient that I believe benefit is to be derived from 



—43- 



the use of suggestive therapeutics; that it is possible to 
cure or to relieve him by hypnotism ; that there is nothing 
either hurtful or strange about it; that it is an ordinary 
sleep, or torpor, which can be induced in almost every 
one, and that this quiet, beneficial condition restores the 
equilibrium of the nervous system, etc. If necessary I 
hypnotize one or two subjects in his presence, in order 
to show him that there is nothing painful in this condi- 
tion, and that it is not accompanied with any unusual 
sensation. When I have thus banished from his mind 
the idea of magnetism and the somewhat mysterious 
fear that attaches to that unknown condition, above all 
when he has seen patients cured or benefited by the 
means in question, he is no longer suspicious, but gives 
himself up. Then I say, Look at me and think of 
nothing but sleep. Your eyelids begin to feel heavy; 
you eyes are tired. They begin to wink; they are getting 
moist ; you cannot see distinctly. They are closed. ' ' Some 
patients close their eyes and are asleep immediately. 
With others I have to repeat, lay more stress on what I 
say, and even make gestures. It makes little difference 
what sort of gesture is made. I hold two fingers of my 
right hand before the patient's eyes and ask him to look 
at them, or pass both hands several times before his eyes, 
or persuade him to fix his eyes upon mine, endeavoring 
at the same time, to concentrate his attention upon the 
idea of sleep. I say, 'your lids are closing; you can- 
not open them again. Your arms feel heavy; so do your 
legs. You cannot feel anything. Your hands are mo- 
tionless. You see nothing; you are going to sleep.' And 
I add in a commanding tone, 'Sleep.' This word often 
turns the balance. The eyes close, and the patient sleeps, 
or is at least influenced. Others offer more resistance. I 
sometimes succeed by keeping the eyes closed for some 
time, commanding silence and quiet, talking continuously, 
and repeating the same formulas: 'You feel a sort of 



11 I 

drowsiness, a torpor; your arms and legs are motionless. 
Your eyelids are warm. Your nervous system is quiet; 
you have no will. Your eyes remain closed. Sleep is 
coming/ etc. After keeping up this auditory suggestion 
for several minutes, I remove my fingers. The eyes re- 
main closed. I raise the patient's arms; they remain up- 
lifted. We have induced cataleptic sleep." Such are 
the methods of the Nancy school, which I consider the 
most desirable for therapeutic purposes. You will likely 
not have occasion to hypnotize several persons at once, 
but should you do so, you can use much the same methods 
required to hypnotize one. Simply command them to 
look fixedly at some object — something bright is the best 
— and make the usual suggestions to bring about sleep. 
Any number of persons can thus be frequently influenced 
at one time. You can also awaken them' all at one time, 
by using the same method required to wake one simply. 
The susceptibility of the subject is an important factor 
in the time taken to induce the hypnotic condition. The 
usual time required to hypnotize the majority of people 
varies from thirty seconds to five minutes. Some cases, 
of course, present greater difficulty, and several attempts 
are found necessary before success is attained. Many 
people think it is a sign of weak will to yield readily to 
hypnotism, and that it is a sign of strong character to 
resist. Both views are equally erroneous. It is not a 
question of the strongest mind conquering in a contest, 
but of submission and passivity on the part of the one to 
be hypnotized. When you hear a person boasting that 
"Nobody can hypnotize me," you can at once set him 
down as an ignoramus who knows nothing whatever 
about the subject. Only experiment can demonstrate 
wthether a particular person can be easily hypnotized or 
not. If a person desires to be hypnotized, and you fail 
on him after several attempts, you will in most cases find 
the cause in his inability to concentrate his mind. It im- 



—45— 

plies no weakness of nerves or brain, no mental or phy- 
sical inferiority of any sort, to be easily hypnotized. As 
these lessons are purely for the students in Suggestive 
Therapeutics, and not for stage exhibitions, it is not 
necessary for me to go into a detailed account of the 
humorous things that a hypnotized person will do. It is 
sufficient to say that he will obey any suggestion you 
may give him, provided, however, that a sufficient de- 
gree of hypnosis has been induced, and that the sugges- 
tion does not conflict with the settled convictions and 
principles of the subject's life. You cannot wrest a 
secret from a person under hypnotic influence any 
quicker than awake. The moral character is always the 
same, asleep or awake. You will only find three degrees 
in hypnotism, however you may read in some books of 
six or more. The first state is called lethargy, in which 
the condition is one of very sound slumber, accompanied 
by great muscular relaxation. The second degree is 
catalepsy. This state is the one in which the muscles be- 
come so rigid as to render the body capable of being sus- 
tained at the head and feet alone. This state is brought 
about entirely by suggestion. The third and most de- 
sirable state is called somnambulism. In this condition 
your suggestions are believed and acted upon without 
doubt or hesitation. Some people are just as susceptible 
in the lighter degrees as others are in the deeper ones. 
In fact the student should pay but little attention to 
these stages. Simply hypnotize your subject as per in- 
structions and go right ahead with your suggestions. 
The student of Suggestive Therapeutics, like every ad- 
vocate of a new science, will meet with many difficulties 
for a time, owing to the prejudice and ignorance that 
exists in the minds of so many, and it is well therefore to 
be able to meet these in the best possible way. The agi- 
tation caused by the Christian Scientists in the medical 
fraternity has put the latter in arms against all kinds of 



—46— 

mental healing. However the Science of Suggestion 
commands greater respect from the physician than all 
the other modes of mental healing. I would suggest to 
the lay student in Suggestion that as little be said about 
hypnotism as possible. Call it the "suggestible state," 
or "impressible condition," or, as Dr. Worcester calls it, 
"partial abstraction," and thus avoid the odium that is 
usually attached to hypnotism. You are now ready to 
ask, "How can a hypnosis be induced without the pa- 
tient knowing it?" I answer, it is not necessary for the 
patient to know it, some of the authors on hypnotism to 
the contrary notwithstanding. I hypnotize people every 
day without saying anything about it. After you have 
examined your patient carefully and have learned what 
the trouble is, and what you are to treat, if you think it 
injudicious to speak of hypnotism, you can proceed about 
as follows: Place your patient in a recumbent posture, 
if convenient on a couch where the limbs can be placed 
in a relaxed position, then instruct your patient to relax 
his body and mind as much as possible, and close his 
eyes, keep them shut, and listen to all you say: then be- 
gin by saying to him, "Now the first thing we will do 
is to harmonize the functions of your body, and equalize 
the nerve currents, and in order to do this I will fix a 
current with myself by taking your hands for a moment. ' ' 
Take both the patient's hands and with a gentle pres- 
sure hold them for about a minute, saying nothing, then 
remove one of your hands to the patient's head with 
fingers extended and thumb on individuality (root of the 
nose between the eyes) with a slight pressure of another 
minute, when you can begin to suggest, "A quiet, easy 
feeling begins to come over you; you are breathing free 
and easy; your nerves are getting very quiet, and you 
begin to feel drowsy. "Easy, quiet feelings come all over 
you, and you begin to want to sleep ; let yourself go, and 
follow your inclinations." Now take your hands and 



—47- 



make light passes beginning at the forehead down over 
the body to the feet; keep this up for five or ten min- 
utes, all the time making such suggestions as will tend to 
produce sleep and drowsiness. After you have your pa- 
tient breathing free and easy and seeming to sleep, you 
can then begin to make such suggestions as is conducive 
to his condition, and which is found in another lesson on 
the treatment of different diseases. Always wake one 
of these kind of patients in the same manner as you 
would if they were hypnotized with their knowledge, 
that is by informing them that you are now going to 
wake them when you count five etc. After you have 
given a patient of this kind two or three treatments it is 
not necessary to go through all of the foregoing pro- 
cedure, you can simply have them lie down, close their 
eyes, make a few long passes and they are asleep, ready 
for the suggestions. If, as will sometimes happen, your 
patient does not get drowsy or go to sleep the first few 
treatments according to the foregoing method, go right 
ahead and make your suggestions just the same as if he 
was sound asleep, keeping up a logical flow of oral sug- 
gestions, all the time which will have the desired effect. 
Sometimes those who are the hardest to get to sleep will 
improve the fastest. If the student of suggestion desires 
to be successful he must have his mind on his work and 
the condition he desires to bring about in his patient. 
Experience has taught me this. I did not use to think 
the mind played such an important part on the operator's 
part, but after several hard patients whom I could not 
affect otherwise, I am convinced of the importance of 
telepathy in connection with oral treatment. To con- 
vince yourself of this take a subject some time after you 
have given the treatment, and before you wake them, 
when you are sure they are sound asleep, and instead of 
letting them know orally that you are about to wake 
them, put your mind strongly on the fact that you can 



—48— 

awaken him mentally. Say to yourself mentally "Now 
when I count ten your eyes will come open, and you will 
be wide awake." Look your patient straight in the eyes 
and begin the count slowly, all the time expecting that 
when ten is reached that his eyes will open. If, when the 
count is finished the eyes do not open at once, don't 
count any more, but keep on saying to yourself "They 
will open soon, you are waking up, you can't sleep any 
longer," etc. Keep this up till they do come open, which 
will not require more than a minute or two at most. 
After you have succeeded a few times you can then wake 
your subject at any time as quick this way, as by oral 
suggestion. I put most any good hypnotic subject to 
sleep by a purely mental effort and wake them the same 
way. I do this before our classes from an adjoining 
room, and without the knowledge of the patient. I take 
some of the students whom I have hypnotized before, or 
some patients who may be present, and without anyone 
knowing what I ami about to do put my mind on the one 
I want to go to sleep, and in one or two minutes have 
them in the land of dreams. To convince my class that 
there is no fraud about it I produce anaesthesia in the 
subject so that a pin can be thrust through the skin with- 
out pain. This will convince the most sceptical of the 
power of thought and its transmission. I can have sub- 
jects to move a certain finger, hand or foot by a mental 
effort. This all takes concentration, and is a very helpful 
practice for one engaged in Suggestive Therapeutics. 
More will be said on this question under the head of 
'absent treatment,' which will be found in the last 
chapter. One difficulty with a great many students is, 
they get so enthused over their success right in, the start, 
and especially when they get a few cases that the doc- 
tors have failed on, and the student of suggestion suc- 
ceeds on, that they begin to think they have a cure all 
for certain, and make too big their claims, and thus in- 



jure them. If we could always have favorable conditions, 
we could safely claim to heal more diseases by suggestion 
than any other method on earth, but we have no control 
over the conditions after a patient has left our office. I 
am almost heartsick sometimes at the thought of the ad- 
verse suggestions that ignorant people foolishly make. I 
frankly declare, and firmly believe, that more people are 
killed every year by adverse suggestions, than are cured 
by medicine. For this reason it is best to inform your 
patients to not let the public know they are taking sug- 
gestive treatment. All your efforts can easily be coun- 
teracted by some "sympathizing friend" who is always 
willing to give advice such as, "Oh, you will go right 
back as soon as you get out from under his influence/ ' 
or "It's all in your imagination," etc. Never take a 
case, if you value your reputation as a doctor of sugges- 
tion, where the members of the family are antagonistic to 
the treatment. Remember, the most forcible suggestion 
is the one that prevails, and a member of the family is 
in telepathic report always. Another difficulty the men- 
tal healer will encounter, and which I think is of enough 
importance to mention here, is the imperative necessity 
of keeping your patients till a cure is permanently ef- 
fected. To do this, it is best that you engage with them 
at first for a definite number of treatments, say a week 
or two weeks, or as many as your judgment thinks will 
take to at least put them on the road to recovery. Have 
your patients pay in advance "as a guarantee of good 
faith." My experience will save you many good pa- 
tients and several dollars. If the patient has invested 
five or ten dollars he will come and take the treatments ; 
if he has not paid anything, he will likely get to thinking 
that he can't see how that kind of treatment can cure 
him without medicine, and not come back. It takes time 
to get all the functions of the body in harmony, and 
especially the kind of patients the students is called upon 



-50— 



to treat; who has tried everything under the sun before 
coming to you, and whose system is full of poisonous 
drugs. Get them tied for a few treatments, and as soon 
as they begin to feel the new life coming they will stay 
with you until they are permanently cured. It takes 
from two to six weeks to cure the chronic cases that medi- 
cine has failed to cure. Of course you will often cure a 
chronic case of constipation in a few treatments, but 
there are nearly always other troubles caused by con- 
stipation which require a longer course of treatment. 
While we are on the subject of difficulties, I will mention 
what are supposed to be a few connected with hypnotism. 
As no two persons are entirely alike in any respect, you 
need not be disappointed if you fail to produce like re- 
sults in any two subjects. In regard to the dangers of 
hypnotism, they have been very largely magnified. 
There are but few dangers resulting from the hypnotic 
condition, and I will mention them here. Remember, 
first, last, and all the time, that the hypnotic state is 
brought about by suggestion in some form, and that the 
subject is always amenable to suggestion. You can al- 
ways obviate any difficulty that may present itself by 
suggestion. One difficulty you will find in some 
subjects is that they are apt to fall asleep spon- 
taneously, after having been previously and fre- 
quently hypnotized. If you see this developing in 
such an one, always give them suggestions against it, 
such as, "You will not go to sleep spontaneously dur- 
ing the day, nor will anyone else be able to hypnotize 
you without your consent. " One other difficulty, which 
is not a danger, is the failure to wake up. You are not 
likely to find any one who will not wake up at your com- 
mand. True, we hear of several such cases, but they are 
always at some other place. Some subjects are slow to 
wake up sometimes, and if the operator is an amateur 
and he gets rattled and runs away, which he is most sure 



-51— 



to do, the whole community gets an opportunity to talk 
about "the dangers of hypnotism." When you go to 
wake your subject, tell him that you are now going to 
wake him, and that he will feel perfectly comfortable 
and good. Say to him: "Now when I count five you 
will wake up, wide awake, and feel well, do you under- 
stand?" Have him answer in the affirmative, then 
say: "All right, I will count." Count slowly and em- 
phasize each count a little more till five is reached, which 
should always be emphasized more than all, and add 
"Wake up," in a commanding tone. Now, if, as is likely 
to happen sometimes, that the eyes do not open at once, 
do not get scared at all: just say to him, "You are 
waking up, your eyes will soon come open, they are 
coming open all right." Or you can ask him if he wants 
to sleep awhile, and if he answers in the affirmative, say 
to him, "All right, you may sleep half an hour, when 
you will wake up." Repeat this to him with emphasis, 
two or three times, and go away and let him alone: he 
will wake up at the appointed time all right. Hypnotism 
is nothing more nor less than the effect of suggestion. 
Suggestion is such a presentation of thoughts or ideas to 
the mind as will result in a mental, moral or physical 
change. The thought may be presented orally, telepath- 
ically, physically or by a look or nod and in many ways 
which become very effective. 



—52— 



CHAPTER VI 



THE CAUSES OP DISEASE. 

In the application of suggestion in the cure of diseases, 
it is of some import for the student to have at least some 
knowledge of the cause of disease. While we cannot in 
these lessons go into a detailed account of the cause of all 
diseases, yet we can in a brief space give much that will 
be of great advantage to the lay student. Let it be un- 
derstood at the outset, that the healing medium for all 
diseases is already in man. That medium is the blood. 
It is in the circulation of the blood that every wound is 
healed, and the rapidity with which the healing takes 
place depends upon the amount and quality of the blood 
supply to the affected part. The blood supply to an 
organ or part may be insufficient, impure, or obstructed, 
and the troubles of the circulation are brought by the 
failure of some organ to perform its functions. The 
organ which propels the blood, the heart, is within man. 
The force which keeps the heart in action is generated 
within man, and is dependent upon the quality and 
quantity of his blood. The quantity and quality of the 
blood depends upon the air taken into the lungs, and the 
food digested and assimilated by the stomach and bowels. 
Anything which will interfere with a man's necessary 
supply of food, or with his digestion and assimilation of 
food, will prevent the production of vital force and in- 
terfere with his health, or if he be sick, will prevent or 
retard his recovery. The brain is the dominant organ of 
the body. Every muscle, nerve and organ is directly in- 



—53— 

flueneed by it and the mind. The digestion and as- 
similation of food may be completely stopped by certain 
mental states. The mental states which most frequently 
interfere with nutrition are melancholia, worry, grief, 
anxiety, fear, unhappiness, love, etc. More diseases are 
caused by constipation than any other one thing known. 
Constipation is caused by the secretions being stinted 
and not attending to the calls of nature. The secretions 
are stinted by not drinking enough fluid. Every normal 
human being ought to drink not less than four or five pints 
of fluids every twenty-four hours. The reason so many 
people obtain relief at some famous watering place after 
everything else has failed is not because of the medicinal 
properties of the water, but because they drink more 
water than they are in the habit of drinking. Besides 
when we remember the power of auto-suggestion we 
have another factor which helps to explain why relief is 
so often obtained. Auto-suggestion is just as forceful 
when used unconsciously as any other way. Drinking 
spring water which has been analyzed and reported to 
contain a dozen or so ingredients, any of which is cal- 
culated to cure most all the diseases in the catalogue, is 
like taking the doctor's medicine. Every time a dose is 
taken there arises an auto-suggestion, "This will help 
me," etc. So we see how it is that the doctor who knows 
his business can succeed as well with his place-boe's as 
well as the one with the genuine article. About as many 
people would get well and experience as much relief in 
drinking filtered cistern water, the same amount, if they 
only believed they were drinking from the fountain of 
some life-giving spring. The all-important organ of the 
system is the alimentary canal as nearly all substances 
for good or bad must pass through this canal and nearly 
all the waste matter must be expelled through it. This 
canal begins with the mouth and ends with the anus. It 
is about 30 feet in length and is lined throughout with a 



-54— 



muscular coat, which has the power to absorb. In this 
coat are many thousands of glands whose office it is to 
secret a fluid to emulsify and digest the food. The food 
having been taken into the mouth should be thoroughly 
masticated which consists in grinding it between the 
teeth and mixing it at the same time with the saliva, thus 
predigesting the food. A lack of this thoroughness in 
mastication is followed by hardened and undigested 
particles passing on through the canal thus irritating 
and setting up a diarrhoea and its many evil results, or it 
may occlude the bowel with constipation, and its greater 
evils resulting. How often do we see in children in 
whom the act of mastication is not well developed, and in 
grown people who eat hastily, the food passing as fecal 
matter practically in the same condition as it was swal- 
lowed. There can be many reasons given for this condi- 
tion in grown people which space forbids but suffice to 
say that one should eat slowly and never drink any liquid 
after twenty minutes before eating and for at least an 
hour after eating. The sense of this will be seen when 
we know! that the presence of the food in the stomach 
excites the many hundreds of glands to action in throw- 
ing out the digestive fluid of a known consistency in 
which condition it can easily digest the food. If now, 
the stomach is filled with any kind of liquid either just 
before or an hour afterwards, this digestive fluid is weak- 
ened, reaction neutralized, and its power of digestion is 
greatly impaired. This being continued day after day, in 
time some part of the canal is bound to give out and dis- 
ease of some nature is the direct result. Digestion is not 
completed in the stomach. After the gastric juice has 
done all the good it can do, the pyloric orifice of the 
stomach opens up, and the food slowly passes into the 
small intestines and at first receives the presence of the 
bile and pancreatic juice, which emulsifies principally 
the fats of the food, but completes the digestion of the 



—55- 



food. The food should now be — if properly digested — in 
a liquid state in which condition only it can be absorbed. 
The many thousands of little glands in the mucous lining 
of the small intestines are now engaged in absorbing or 
drinking up this liquid, which we will call chyle. It is 
thrown into a large duct, and from thence it is thrown 
directly into the venous circulation, thence into the 
heart, then to all parts of the body to be appropriated to 
every living organ and tissue of the body. The fluids we 
have mentioned above, acts also as a preserver of the 
food. Any one or all of these being weakened, subjects 
the food to an early putrefaction. Man is dying at the 
same time he is living. This food which has now been 
absorbed and thrown to all parts of the living body is 
being transformed into many living tissues of the body. 
Nature, seemingly, abhors unused tissues in the human 
body. Every action or motion of the body destroys a 
certain amount of living tissue: every thought we think 
is followed by the destruction of brain cells, hence the 
body is continually decaying. While the blood is en- 
gaged in building up the body, it is also, with the lacteal 
system engaged in tearing down all diseased and un- 
used tissue, and forcing it through the eliminative organs. 
The alimentary canal is the great sewerage of the sys- 
tem. All the waste material of the body, or nearly all is 
thrown directly by the lacteal system in this canal and 
should this system be in a healthy condition, evacuation 
of the bowels should take place at least once a day — a 
free evacuation. Constipation is usually a disease or ob- 
struction of the large bowel and not necessarily of the 
rectum as is generally thought. From the research of 
O'Bierne we learn that the rectum in a normal condition 
is always empty. This part of the canal is endowed with 
a certain sensibility of nerve power ; that in health, these 
nerves give notice of the presence of fecal matter, and 
there follows a desire to defecate. To perform this act 



—56— 

the abdominal walls are working in harmony with the 
contraction of the large intestines. In habitual constipa- 
tion this muscular contractility of the intestines is dead- 
ened by over-distention of the bowel; in other words 
the muscular coat is paralyzed from' the prolonged in- 
ternal pressure of fecal matter. This distention is most 
usually due to a neglect to answer the calls of nature. 
Instead of receiving immediate attention, which is so im- 
portant to good health, defecation is considered a petty 
annoyance to be gotten through with as soon as possible. 
The sedentary lives many of the American people lead, 
and the undesirable closets to which hundreds of our 
shop girls are compelled to go, else wait until they get 
home, and by that time the desire has all gone, causes 
constipation. This continues day after day, with a semi- 
occasional evacuation following some laxative. A dan- 
gerous habit one is getting in, besides carrying around 
with them at least a gallon of putrid matter writhing 
with microbes. 

The bowel being now occluded, gives rise to many 
symptoms, a few we will enumerate. A heavy weight 
in the bottom of the bowel, colicky pains and flatulency, 
hemorrhoids, pains in head, flushed face, dull mind, pal- 
pitation of the heart, the bowels not moving some of 
the poison or waste matter is forced to escape through 
some of the other eliminative organs. The rectum being 
full also with fecal matter now presses against the neck 
of the bladder and causes retention of urine. This being 
kept up very long produces cystitis and its evil results. 
The kidneys become engorged and inflamed and we will 
soon have a well-pronouncel case of Bright 's disease. 
Other diseases will arise such as rheumatism, dropsy, 
gout, together with symptoms of swelled feet and hands, 
puffed eyes and other symptoms too numerous to men- 
tion. 

The kidneys being hindered in their excretory work, 



—57— 

the skin is forced to halfway do the work the kidneys 
should have done. So much of this poison thrown out 
through this channel produces erythema, eczema, and all 
these kindred diseases. 

Constipation causes a retardation in the circulation, 
hence an engorged and enlarged liver. The bile no 
longer is thrown into the intestines, but into the circula- 
tion and is deposited in the skin. Hence we have 
jaundice. 

We have already spoken of flatulency as a symptom of 
constipation. This gaseous condition presses upward 
against the stomach and liver, which in turn encroaches 
upon the lungs and heart, hence we have our heart's 
action impaired, and breathing much shortened. The cir- 
culation becomes very unequal throughout the body, and 
there follows the remark so often heard, "I have such 
a tired feeling. My head aches. My mind won't work 
good. I just feel of no account all over." The above 
symptoms let alone, produces in women the much talked- 
of female weaknesses, for the simple reason these organs 
are trying to eliminate from the body this pent-up poison. 
In man it produces seminal weakness and lost manhood. 



—58— 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN DURING NATURAL 

SLEEP. 

Induced sleep and natural sleep are the same, yet not 
the same. There is one important point of distinction 
between these two states. 

It is the law of natural sleep that the sleeper is in rela- 
tionship with himself alone. 

It is the law of induced sleep that the sleeper is in re- 
lationship with the operator. 

During natural sleep the patient is inattentive ; during 
induced sleep he is attentive. 

It does not weaken this position to admit that there 
are exceptions in both cases; that sometimes the person 
who has passed into a state of natural sleep enter spon- 
taneous into relationship with others, as in those cases 
where sleepers may be drawn into conversation by cau- 
tious speech; or, that it occasionally happens that the 
person who has been put to sleep by the operator passes 
from a condition of attention to one of inattention. The 
law holds good in spite of these exceptions, and with a 
proper understanding of the law firmly held we can ap- 
preciate the fact that natural sleep may, under proper 
guidance, change from a condition of inattention into a 
condition of attention. 

We now go a step further and assert that unless the 
sleeper becomes attentive, suggestive treatment in nat- 
ural sleep is ineffective and useless. The operator must 
be assured by word of mouth that the sleeper is no Ion- 



—59— 

ger busied with fancies and dream pictures. He must 
be assured that suggestions are not only heard, but are 
obeyed, realized, become fact, in the sleeper's mind. 
There is an easy way by which the operator may satisfy 
himself that what he says will not only be heard but 
heeded by the sleeper, viz. : After receiving a response 
from the lips of the sleeper, the operator should take hold 
of the hand lying nearest to him and raise the arm of the 
sleeper, and say, "Your arm will stay in the position in 
which I will place it. It will not feel fatigued. It will 
stay where it is put." Hold the arm in the air for a 
few seconds, repeating these suggestions, and then let 
go. If it stays as put the sleeper's attention is fixed 
upon the operator. If it falls, there is a condition of 
weariness present which prevents the suggestion from 
taking firm hold of the mind, and other suggestions given 
will be equally ineffective. Therefore it is well to re- 
peat this experiment, and the suggestions given, until the 
fixation of the arm in the air attests the fixation of the 
attention of the sleeper. When this occurs, the sleeper 
has passed into the same mental condition as prevails 
during induced sleep, i. e., he is in relationship with the 
operator. 

Now he both hears and heeds. 

Why is it that suggestions thus given have a power 
which is denied the same suggestions given to the same 
person while the latter is in his waking state? Simply 
because the auto-suggestion or opposing thought of the 
sleeper is in abeyance. Criticism is absent. The oper- 
ator secures attention, passivity, and receptivity. The 
mind of the sleeper is more plastic because of the ab- 
sence of critical thought plus the full attention given to 
the operator. Note here the Law of Education. 

Education is effective when this condition of mind pre- 
vails in the waking man, i. e., when the person being 
taught gives his whole attention to the lesson and 



-60— 



checks his auto-suggestions, he becomes receptive to the 
lesson. So in sleep, the person to be impressed by the 
suggestion must be attentive to the operator. Sugges- 
tive treatment is educational treatment most favorably 
applied. Sleep is not a necessity in this work, but it is 
a powerful assistance, and we should at all times en- 
deavor to induce sleep, that the mind of the person to be 
treated may be as wax to receive impressions. The suc- 
cess of a suggestion depends upon the depth of the im- 
pression made upon the mind of the recipient. Sleep 
favors the making of a deep impression, therefore sleep 
favors success. 

Of all methods of treating bad habits in children, there 
is none that can compare with this, since it puts in the 
hands of the parents themselves the means whereby their 
children may be reclaimed or improved. 

Dr. Sheerin says: 

' ' I maintain with others, that evil is not a natural heri- 
tage of the child, and its presence merely indicates an 
ignorance of good, or absence of right thought." 

Good and evil thoughts are acquired or suggested and 
not inherited ; and as we are all prone to accept the good, 
there must be something radically wrong in our modes 
of correcting misdemeanor. That relic of barbarism, cor- 
poral punishment, is the bane of childhood days, causing 
in children many bad habits and sins. It invariably 
drives the wrong way. 

The harsh and cruel parent resorts to corporal pun- 
ishment more as an outlet for their wrath, than for the 
reformation of the child. Such harsh treatment as some 
children get, embitters their whole childhood days. 
They are driven to seek some way of escaping the awful 
ordeal of punishment as meted out to them by ill- 
tempered parents, and like all other activities of nature, 
they follow the line of least resistance, learning such bad 
habits as lying, stealing, cheating, etc. 



-61— 



One would think a mother's instinct of self-interest 
would prevent her from harboring and giving vent to 
rage. She should remember that anger and hatred, 
though temporarily indulged and quickly sped, are 
thoughts which leave behind them scars in the flesh as 
deep and painful as those inflicted by the rod upon the 
helpless child. 

Mothers should also consider what their little ones 
might think of them and their treatment; for be it re- 
membered that all that the child is — his character, his 
habits, likes and dislikes — are the results of his thoughts. 

Now there is one other popular form of correcting 
misdemeanor, which is almost as brutal as corporal pun- 
ishment, and that is " scolding.' ' 

When you call your children lazy, you implant the idea 
of laziness and make laggards of them. If you call them 
liars and thieves, and punish them for the same, you are 
insinuating and beating into them the habit of deceit and 
theft. If you call your boy a wild scamp, "a liar and 
good for nothing," etc., you should expect him to be 
nothing more than that, for all these things are most 
forcible suggestions which drive the way they are sent. 

The remedy lies, not in admonishing or scolding him 
for wrong doing, but in holding up to him the picture of 
his better nature or self. Give him to understand that 
his evil ways are not natural with him; that he has 
proneness for sticking to the truth, because his better 
self is his stronger self; and that, therefore, it is not in 
him to do or say any evil thing. 

If he is dull of perception or inattentive to study, do 
not call him a dunce, but let him know that you think 
him as bright and attentive to studies as any of his class- 
mates; that he has as much power of concentration and 
application in him as any of them. Give him these sug- 
gestions in a most positive manner and very persistently, 
day after day. Should you fail to reach him in this 



—62— 

manner, then resort to suggestion during natural or 
hypnotic sleep. These are the most powerful suggestions 
that can be made. They reach and impress the subjec- 
tive mind, which all objective means of educating the 
child fail to do; and this is of greatest importance 
where any deep-rooted habit or evil is to be removed. A 
child, though born into this world almost entirely sub- 
jective in nature, soon develops objectivity; and in order 
to reach his subjective mind, pure and simple, we must 
either reach him during natural sleep, when his objective 
mind or faculties are in obeyance, or, hypnotize him, 
when we get the same conditions. 

Though it is the popular belief that a sleeping person 
is, for the time being, dead to the world, such is not the 
case. The objective is the only mind which may be en- 
tirely unconscious of what is taking place about you, 
but the subjective mind never sleeps. It can be com- 
municated with at all times, but, at no time so well as 
when the objective mind is quiescent or held in abeyance, 
which is the case in natural or hypnotic sleep. 

Now, why do we wish to reach the subjective mind, 
and why is it that an idea suggested during sleep should 
have more weight than the same idea impressed upon 
the waking or objective mind? Because the subjective 
mind has complete control of the functions and condi- 
tions of the body, and is pre-eminently susceptible to sug- 
gestions when not hampered by the objective mind. This 
knowledge of the extreme alertness and susceptibility of 
the subjective mind, should lead us to be careful of all 
that we say in the presence of a sleeper. 

There is no diffusion of attention in sleep, and the con- 
sciousness is narrowed down to a point of concentration 
rarely arrived at during the waking state. This explains 
why suggestions in this state become so intensified and 
make such a lasting impression. 

Now, it is well known that our dreams are influenced 



-63— 



by our thoughts on going to bed, and we act out these 
thoughts or suggestions, either in a real or imaginary 
way, by speech, act or dream. "We are, therefore, gen- 
erally in partial relationship with the objective life, and 
it is not difficult to establish a full relationship without 
interrupting sleep. Following out this idea, I have prac- 
ticed for several years the following method of placing 
myself in relationship with patients who proved re- 
fractory to the usual methods of hypnotization : I have 
had patients come to my sanitarium, or I go to their 
homes for the purpose, and before they retire for the 
night, I say to them: 

"Tonight I shall come to your bedside, talk quietly to 
you and you will hear and give answer without being 
disturbed or awakened. You must go to sleep with the 
self-determination and affirmation that you will sleep 
through it all and obey my suggestions to the letter." 

This same method may be couched in simpler language 
and used by the mother as a preliminary preparation for 
her child, whom she desires to treat in this manner. 

When you have made all preparations and find that 
the child is fast asleep, go and quietly seat yourself by 
his side. Gently stroke his head and body, and as 
quietly and softly call him by name (not in a whisper, 
which is a rasping sound,) but in distinct, clear tones, 
saying : 

"This is mamma come to keep her promise and talk to 
you. You will sleep on and not try to wake. You hear 
my voice which sounds pleasant to you, and you will 
answer me without waking. You are sound asleep, per- 
fectly comfortable and most happy to lie there listening 
and talking to mamma. Now, I press my lips to yours 
and you may speak freely and easily. Do you hear me, 
(name)? Answer me, yes." 

The child may at first stir uneasily, or open his eyes; 
but it is only necessary to make several attempts before 



— 64r- 

success is yours. Then give the suggestions as indicated 
in the case in hand. Have your child promise what you 
wish him to do or be, and he will invariably keep his 
promise. On waking in the morning he willl have forgot- 
ten all that was done or said, but you will find that your 
suggestions have become a part of him and that he is 
living them out. 

Do not forget that thoughts are things and that they 
can be willed into the child's dreams and be made a part 
of him as well as the spoken suggestion. As you form 
in your mind what to say in treating a case, let your 
will be employed in projecting these selfsame thoughts 
into the mind of your patient. 

Parents have learned the method of us, and when such 
was put in practice by them, a greater degree of harmony 
and pleasantness existed between them and their off- 
spring. 



—65— 



CHAPTER VIII. 



AUTO-SUGGESTION. 

The most important branch of Suggestive or Psycho 
Therapeutics is yet to be discussed. It has already been 
shown that the subjective mind of an individual is con- 
stantly controlled by the suggestions of his own objec- 
tive mind. This is the normal relation of the two minds; 
and when that control ceases, the person is insane just in 
proportion to the degree in which the objective mind 
has abdicated its functions. This control is ordinarily 
exercised unconsciously to the individual. That is to 
say, we do not ordinarily recognize the operation of the 
two minds, for the simple reason that we do not stop to 
philosophize upon the subject of their mutual relations. 
It is auto-suggestion that fills our asylums with mono- 
maniacs. That long-continued and persistent dwelling 
upon a single idea often results in chronic hallucinations 
is a fact within the knowledge of every student of mental 
science. This question is mentioned here to illustrate 
the power and potency of auto-suggestion, even when the 
suggestion is against the evidence of reason and sense. 
It must not be forgotten that an auto-suggestion which 
produces a hallucination such as is the case many times, 
operates on the lines of strongest resistance in nature. 
If, therefore, such results can be produced when op- 
posed by the strongest instincts of our nature, how much 
easier must it be to produce equally wonderful results 
when operating in harmony with these instincts, and, 
hence, on the lines of least resistance. It is self evident, 



-66- 



therefore, that auto-suggestion can be employed to great 
advantage for therapeutics purposes. Indeed, the power 
of self help is the most important part of mental thera- 
peutics. Without it the science is of comparatively little 
value or benefit to mankind. With it goes the power to 
resist disease, to prevent sickness, as well as to cure it. 
That it can be done by anyone of ordinary intelligence 
is a fact which has been demonstrated beyond question. 
The process by which it can be done is as simple as the 
laws which govern the subject matter. The student 
should bear in mind the fundamental principles which 
lie at the foundation of mental therapeutics. 

1. The subjective mind exercises complete control 
over the functions and sensations of the body. 

2. The subjective mind is constantly amenable to 
control by the suggestion of the objective mind. 

3. These two propositions being true, says Mr. Hud- 
son, "the conclusion is obvious, that the functions and 
sensations of the body can be controlled by suggestions 
of the objective mind." 

The whole science of psycho-therapeutics is embraced 
in the foregoing propositions. They contain all that a 
patient, who undertakes to heal himself or ward off the 
encroachments of disease needs to know. To give a few 
general suggestions on how to apply auto-suggestion, I 
will use the words of Mr. Hudson again on this subject: 
"We will take for illustration a simple case of nervous 
headache, and suppose that the patient resolves to cure 
himself. He must, first of all, remember that the sub- 
jective mind is to be treated specially as though it were 
a separate and distinct entity. The suggestion must first 
be made that the headache is about to cease; then that 
it is already ceasing; and finally, that it has ceased. 
These suggestions should be made in the form of spoken 
words, and they should be steadily persisted in until the 
desired effect is produced. A constant reiteration of the 



—67— 

declaration that the head is better will inevitably pro- 
duce the desired result, and when the effect is distinctly 
felt, the declaration should be boldly made that the pain 
has entirely ceased. This should be followed by the 
declaration that there will be no return of the symptoms ; 
and this should be made with an air, tone, and feeling of 
perfect confidence. The only practical difficulty in the 
way of success with a beginner lies in the fact that at 
first he lacks confidence. The education of his whole life 
has been such as to cause him to look with distrust upon 
any but material remedies, and there is a disinclination 
to persist in his efforts. If he has the strength of will to 
persist until he is cured, he will find that the next time 
that he tries it, there will be much less resistance to over- 
come. Having once triumphed, the reasoning of his ob- 
jective mind no longer interposes itself as an obstruction, 
but concurs in the truth of his suggestions. He then 
possesses both objective and subjective faith in his pow- 
ers, and he finds himself operating on a line of no re- 
sistance whatever. When he has attained this point, the 
rest is easy; and he will eventually be able to effect an 
instantaneous cure of his headache, or any other pain 
the moment he finds himself threatened with one. These 
remarks apply of course, to every disease amenable to 
control by mental processes. It is believed that the few 
simple rules herein laid down will enable anyone of or- 
dinary intelligence to become proficient, by a little prac- 
tice, to the science of self-healing. It is not a mere 
theory, without practice, which has been here developed. 
It has been demonstrated over and over again to be 
eminently practical, not only as a means of healing dis-, 
ease, but as a means of warding off its encroachments. 
Indeed, its chief value will eventually be found to con- 
sist in the almost ultimate power which it gives one to 
protect himself from contracting disease. To do that it 
is only necessary to hold one's self in the mental atti- 



—68— 

tude of denying the power of disease to obtain the mas- 
tery over him. When the patient recognizes the first 
symptoms of approaching illness, he should at once com- 
mence a vigorous course of therapeutic auto-suggestion. 
He will find prevention much easier than cure; and by 
persistently following such a course he will soon discover 
that he possesses a perfect mastery over his own health/ ' 
Since no cure is ever effected without the aid of auto 
or self-suggestion, it is well that the method of applying 
this force be fully understood. 

When you wish to treat yourself, withdraw to some 
quiet place where you can be alone and remain undis- 
turbed. Place yourself in an easy chair, or, better still, 
in a recumbent position upon a bed or lounge; closing 
your eyes, completely relaxing the tension of your 
muscles and making yourself as comfortable as possible. 
Following this, try to make yourself inwardly still, leav- 
ing your fears, cares and worries behind you as you enter 
your r.etreat. This may be difficult at first, but keep on 
trying a few days and success will be yours. 

You will find that concentration is the key to this 
power, and your success in this mode of healing will de- 
pend upon your ability to concentrate your thoughts on 
the objeet desired. Sleep should be your first desire, for 
in that condition the objective or waking mind is held in 
abeyance, and the subjective mind has complete control 
of the functions and conditions of the body; receiving 
and acting upon suggestions without meeting with oppo- 
sition from any source. The best method, therefore, is 
to talk to and treat yourself precisely as you would talk 
to and treat another. Consider yourself as a duality, i. 
e., as consisting of two conscious, intelligent personalities 
or minds — an objective or waking and an subjective or 
sub-conscious mind, if you please — and let your objective 
assert, with confidence, to your subjective personality, 
that you feel an easy, peaceful, and sleepy sensation com- 



—69— 

ing all over your body. That your eyes are getting tired ; 
the eyelids too heavy to lift; that you are feeling so 
heavy and sleepy, sleepy, etc.; that you are going to 
sleep, etc. Intermingle with these suggestions the posi- 
tive affirmation that your disorder (calling it by name) 
is about to leave; it's already leaving you; that health 
and strength is returning to you; that the good effects 
will be permanent, etc. 

Believe in your power as supreme commander, and that 
your commands will be hearkened to and obeyed. Con- 
stantly impress on this subjective personality, thoughts 
of perfection in health, until these thoughts become out- 
wardly expressed in the flesh. 

If possible, learn the anatomy and physiology of the 
parts you desire to treat, as they are in health; form in 
your mind their ideal and concentrate your thoughts on 
the same, with the wish and belief that such will be 
realized in the flesh. Try this every day, or as often as 
possible. 

There are external aids to the above methods, such as 
crystals or other shining objects. By steadily gazing at 
the same, one is enabled to keep his thoughts from wan- 
dering; to assist materially in bringing about the desired 
physiological and psychological condition. 

This self-treatment, my friends, will also do you good 
service in bringing to your mind a realization of its au- 
thority over matter; of the proper relation of mind and 
body. We are all apt to forget the supremacy of mind 
and credit matter with too much power. 

Do not wait until you are sick before taking up this 
practice. Commence while in good health, and when 
sickness comes you will find yourself fortified and able 
to throw off disease with little effort. If you have some 
friend in whom you have confidence, permit him to give 
you the needed suggestion and the cure will be ma- 
terially expedited. 



-70— 



Do not be afraid of failure to awaken. If not inter- 
fered with yon will simply sleep until rested; but should 
you wish to awaken in ten or twenty minutes, it is only 
necessary to give yourself the pre-hypnotic suggestion to 
do so, and you will waken at the desired moment. You 
have, probably, aroused yourself in this wise before when 
wishing to make an early start on a journey. 



-71— 



CHAPTER IX. 



DISEASES AND HOW TO TREAT THEM. 

In another chapter we have pointed out the cause of 
most diseases, and we will now give our mode of apply- 
ing suggestion to the different classes of disease. Be- 
fore beginning to treat any disease, however, there are a 
few very important points to be remembered in the ap- 
plication of suggestion. 

First — there should be a desire on the part of the pa- 
tient, as it is difficult to accomplish much without it. 

Second — Expectation is another necessary element. 

Third — Attention must be had, and these will all ap- 
ply in inducing the subjective state (hynosis). 

Fourth — Repetition. Without this factor you will fail 
to get satisfactory results. 

Fifth — Frequency. 

A little explanation will perhaps help the student to 
see the imperative necessity of these five factors. It is a 
well known fact that many times a person will become 
possessed of a desire to die, this desire grows into a 
conviction that he going to die, and harboring this con- 
viction, he does die, and all the medical skill in the land 
cannot save him. I have known of several just such 
cases. By proper suggestion under favorable conditions 
we can sometimes drive away all these depressing fears, 
increase desire, excite expectation, inspire with hope, and 
lift people from conditions of despair and distress, pov- 
erty and want, exhaustion and disease, and start them to 
living a new life. Expectation or faith, while a very 



-72— 



necessary element in the ultimate cure of disease, yet in 
the "suggestible condition" can be induced. A patient 
who has no objective faith can be given faith, which will 
increase as the recovery begins. It will be seen at once 
how important it is to have the attention of the patient ; 
you cannot hypnotize without attention, nor will your 
suggestions be accepted unless you have it completely. 

Repetition and frequency is of vast import, as anyone 
who has ever tried to commit to memory a poem or essay 
can testify. We say a thing until it is so fastened on our 
minds that we could not forget it if we would. The dis- 
tinction between repetition and frequency is this, we re- 
peat a thing several times, then pass to something else, 
and finally return and repeat the same thing over and 
over frequently. The student will see this more clearly 
in some of the detailed cases of making suggestions which 
will follow in this chapter. 

Constipation. 

Since, as we have shown in a former chapter, constipa- 
tion causes more difficulties than perhaps any other one 
thing, we will here give in detail how it should be 
treated. Most people who suffer from constipation drink 
too little water, while others may drink too much. Very 
often it resullts from not having attended to the calls of 
nature. In the first case the lack of fluids stints the se- 
cretions of the body. 

In the second case, too much fluid causes an abnormal 
activity of the kidneys and the whole force of elimina- 
tion seems to be drawn in that direction. In the third 
case, if the bowels are not emptied at the proper time, 
re-absorption of the fluid constituents of the fecal matter 
takes place and hardened stools are the result. 



—73— 

"When Nature calls at either door, 

Do not attempt to bluff her, 

But haste away, at night or day, 

Or health is sure to suffer." 

Ingestion of food, its digestion and assimilation, are 
universally recognized as essential; but necessity of 
thorough elimination of waste is not so generally under- 
stood, the result of which is much ill-defined, though se- 
rious invalidism brought on through an inexcusable dis- 
regard of one of the most important calls of nature. On 
this point a valuable lesson might be derived from the 
brute creation, whose frequent daily observances of this 
kind, irrespective of circumstances, are well known, and 
are a sufficient commentary on the significance of the 
call, for animal instinct seldom proves false to physical 
laws. Even the infant has no restriction whatever, and, 
when in a normal condition, has upon an average of 
three passages per diem. There is no doubt that many 
of the ills of human life may be traced directly to con- 
stipation, which, if long continued, introduces a train of 
symptoms that present themselves for relief in the daily 
practice of every physician; nor does he find any one 
cause of ill health so difficult of removal, for its effects 
in turn become causes that continually react upon and 
aggravate its own condition. 

Now to treat a case of constipation, first instruct him 
in regard to the amount of fluids he should drink daily. 
Find out about how much he has been in the habit of 
drinking every twenty-four hours. Instruct him to drink 
four or five pints of fluid per day, and in small quan- 
tities, and to think every time he takes a drink what it 
is for, that it is to furnish secretion and to keep the 
bowels open. Now place your patient in a recumbent 
posture on a couch or bed if convenient, induce a hyp- 
nosis by making the long passes from head to foot, and 
then proceed to make your suggestions in something like 



-74— 



the following manner. "You are now in a very quiet, 
easy and comfortable condition. You are breathing free 
and easy and deep. Your nervous system is coming into 
perfect harmony. You are now relaxed from head to 
foot. You have been troubled with constipation, but 
you will be troubled no more. As you take this attitude 
and relax yourself from head to foot, and breathe free 
and deep, every function of your body comes in har- 
mony with each other. Under this relaxed condition, as 
you breathe free and deep, you not only purify your 
blood with the oxygen breathed into your lungs, but you 
equalize the circulation of the blood, and stimulate all the 
organs of your body to activity. There is no contrac- 
tion or concentration of the nerves of the stomach, and 
the secretions will improve. You will drink plenty of 
fluids daily which will furnish secretions. Your bowels 
will move regularly every day free and easy, and you 
will not be bothered any more with constipation. ' ' 
Here the operator should begin a light massage of the 
abdomen, first down the center from the pit of the stom- 
ach to the lower part of the abdomen, and then follow 
the ascending colon up the right side and across the top 
next to the stomach and down the descending colon to 
the sigmoid flexure. This can be done over the clothing, 
and at the same time keeping up your suggestions some- 
thing like the above. It might be well to ask your pa- 
tient when the most convenient time is to attend to the 
evacuation of the bowels, and then suggest very posi- 
tively that they would move at that time. If the patient 
is a good hypnotic subject you can heighten your sug- 
gestion by taking a swallow of water and give him, as- 
suring him that it is a purgative and will move his 
bowels at the appointed time. If for any reason you 
should fail to move them in two or three days have him 
use a glycerine suppository or an enema (injection). 



—75— 

Diarrhoea. 

About the only difference in the treatment of diarrhoea 
and constipation is that sometimes it is best for the pa- 
tient to eat rather moderately for a few days after com- 
mencing the treatment. This I know will seem rather 
strange to some, when one is directly opposite the other. 
A moment's reflection, however, will show very clearly 
that disease is an abnormal condition, and all anyone can 
do is to get a normal condition. The same thing that 
causes constipation causes diarrhoea, undigested food in 
the bowels acting as an irritant. Stop the irritation by 
producing a normal condition of the stomach and bowels 
and you will stop the diarrhoea. Make about the same 
kind of suggestions, using gentle massage the same as in 
constipation. 

Asthma. 

In the treatment of any case we should never make a 
doubtful speech. Negative suggestions are permissible, 
but affirmations are better. For example we may say, 
"The pain is leaving your face; the pain is going away 
from your face ; the pain is now all gone from your 
face," etc. But we might say, "Your face will soon 
feel easy and comfortable; your face is already feeling 
more comfortable; your face is feeling perfectly well, 
easy and quiet, perfectly well." Our suggestions should 
be as free from ideas of painful or diseased conditions 
as possible. Think about the condition you really want, 
then form your suggestions of such words as will clearly 
express your wants. In the above case what did we 
want? You infer from the suggestions made that the 
patient was suffering from pain in some part of the face. 
Well, if this be the case we want an easy comfortable 
condition, do we not? Then what should we say? Is it 
necessary that we should refer to the pain in order that 



-76— 



the patient shall have comfort? No. Never mind the 
pain, it is only a negative condition, and we ignore it, 
and go on and demand what we want — an easy comfort- 
able condition, and we get it. Now there are hints that 
may serve us in any case, no matter what it may be. I 
have a case of asthma. My patient is breathing with 
great difficulty. He seems to be able to take in all the 
breath required, but while the effort of inspiration is 
comparatively easy, expiration labors him very much, 
and he really suffers great distress on account of his dif- 
ficult breathing. There is a spasmodic condition of the 
bronchial tubes, the air cells are filled to repletion, the 
patient perspires freely, and he complains of pain and 
distress in his breast. What do we want? What does 
the patient want? The patient would like to have free 
and easy breathing. Then we will suggest to him that 
he will soon become quiet; that he will breathe free and 
easy; that he will be able to breathe free and easy all 
day, every day, and that he will be perfectly well. These 
suggestions should be made over and over to him, for 
there is a mighty force in repetition and frequency; and 
if we forcibly impress the suggestions above made, no 
matter how severe the distress, how violent and spas- 
modic the cough, the patient will relax, and will finally 
go into a quiet, sound sleep. So far as my experience 
goes, there is no treatment in use equal to suggestion in 
all cases of asthma, either acute or chronic; and we de- 
pend upon it as a radical cure as well as a measure of 
temporary or immediate relief. 

Consumption. 

Here comes a man who thinks he has the consumption ; 
every body says he has it, and he really looks like he 
might have it sure enough. He is lean, lank, has a cadav- 
erous look, breathes rapidly, coughs almost incessantly, 
pulse frequent and heart impulse very weak, shoulders 



—77- 



stooped, finger nails clubbed, and in fact he appears to 
have all the symptoms of consumption. His appetite is 
poor, digestion feeble, and he appropriates but little, of 
what he eats. He has been sick for several years, has 
tried all kinds of medicines and doctors, and now comes 
here for suggestion. 

Now let us take a glance at the wants of this patient, 
and then we can formulate suggestions to suit his case. 
We place him in a recumbent posture, have him close his 
eyes, and then make long passes over his body from head 
to foot, and as we make these passes we suggest that he 
is getting more quiet and comfortable ; that his pulse are 
going slower, and that he is breathing free and easy. 

We make the long passes over him that he may realize 
that something is being done for him: and let me re- 
mark right here that no matter how nervous and dis- 
turbed any patient may be, and no difference what dis- 
ease he may be suffering from, if you will place him in 
a recumbent posture, have him close his eyes and make 
long passes over him from head to foot, he will soon feel 
the quieting influence coming from the effort especially 
if you suggest that he is becoming quiet and restful. 
You may ask what good comes from passes? Well, you 
may think as you please, about that, but that good results 
follow I do know. I am quite sure however, that sug- 
gestion — thought force — does it all. What I mean to 
say is that no physical change results from the passes, 
but that they may enable us to project thought more di- 
rectly and forcibly, and that they may prepare the pa- 
tient to receive them more readily and with greater 
effect. Now, I ask the reader to weigh the above sen- 
tence carefully, for there is a vital point in it. It ex- 
plains or justifies all the physical efforts and manipula- 
tions we make in connection with verbal suggestions. A 
novice in Suggestive Therapeutics can nearly always do 
work better if he is permitted to make passes and manip- 



-78- 



ulate his patient while he is giving him suggestions ; and 
it is frequently so with healers of experience ; but as we 
grow in experience, and learn that it is thought force that 
makes the changes sought, we do not depend so much 
upon passes and manipulations for results. Magnetic 
healers depend upon touches, but it is thought that 
heals. But now we go back to our patient and give him 
such suggestions as he requires. We again say he is 
breathing free and easy, and that he is feeling more 
quiet and comfortable, and go ahead with a speech some- 
thing like this: "You are breathing free and easy; 
breathing free and easy; breathing free and easy; 
as you breathe deep and strong, your chest ex- 
pands, the bronchial tubes relax, the fresh air 
reaches the very extremities of the bronchial tubes 
and here gives off its oxygen to the blood. As you thus 
breathe deeply you inhale health, for as the oxygen given 
off from the air in the air cells in your lungs reaches the 
blood you are at once revived; this reddens and enriches 
your blood; invigorates your whole nervous system; in- 
creases your appetite; improves your digestion; you ap- 
propriate more food; you build up in general health and 
strength; your heart beats regular and stronger; you 
have more endurance ; you walk with a lighter step ; 
your eyes look brighter; your voice is stronger; you 
sleep and rest well; nutrition is in excess of waste, and 
you are gaining in flesh and strength; and you are ab- 
solutely better in every respect; getting better every 
day, and will soon be well from head to foot. You are 
already feeling better. Every function of your body is 
now in harmony one with another; breathing well; eat- 
ing with a relish; digesting properly; bowels regular; 
skin and kidneys depurating properly; liver acting well; 
better every way; better every day; and finally per- 
fectly well, fat and strong. You absolutely have the 
force within you to throw off every negative condition 



-79— 



of weakness and disease ; and to repulse all unfriendly or 
adverse suggestions that may be offered. I say you have 
the strength to overcome anything, no matter what it 
may be. Never mind what anybody says to you; I say 
you have the power to overcome every adverse condition 
that may appear to trouble you. All you have to learn is 
to recognize your own force, hold to the truth and you 
can overcome all difficulties. You are now doing well. 
You are now moving in the right direction. Go ahead. 
Good health is before you, and no one will realize it 
sooner than you will." 

Now this is a sample of such a treatment as I give 
patients of this kind. I go over about the same thing 
several times at same seance or sitting, and I like to have 
such patients come often — three or four times a week — 
and if they have nothing else to do I prefer to have them 
come every day. 

Loss of Voice and Melancholy. 

By George C. Pitzer, M. D.) 

Mr. H., age 48, a Christian missionary worker, came to 
see me in May, 1898, suffering from loss of voice and 
melancholy. He could not utter a single syllable louder 
than a whisper. He had been that way for eighteen 
months; said that it came on him rather suddenly, and 
that he had been treated by some of the most skilled phy- 
sicians in the country; had been to California for a 
change of climate, and with all that had been done he 
had gotten no better of his hoarseness, and that he had 
been losing flesh and strength for some weeks, possibly 
for two months, and was scarcely able to get around. 
He had an annoying cough, accompanied with a slight 
expectoration. Respiration was shallow and too rapid — 
not full and easy by any means, and he suffered from 
a feeling of oppression in his breast. Appetite poor and 



-80— 



digestion feeble. He could not swallow well. Solids 
would sometimes choke him, and this disturbed him very 
much. He was very despondent; had lost nearly all 
hope of ever regaining his health and voice. The loss 
of his voice and the idea of having to give up his tem- 
perance and missionary labors, which he had chosen for 
his life work, and in which his whole mind and soul 
seemed to be so earnestly engaged, almost broke his heart. 
He had taken a lively interest in relieving the distresses 
of mankind, and his incapacitated condition, which for- 
bade active work for the relief of humanity, worried him 
night and day. 

I examined Mir. H. very carefully, and after making up 
my mind that he had no constitutional nor local organic 
troubles sufficient to hinder him from getting well, I very 
positively told him so. I told him that his loss of voice 
and difficulty in swallowing depended upon nervous dis- 
turbances; that he had no serious organic diseases; and 
that I could cure him; that I could restore his voice, im- 
prove his appetite, invigorate his digestion, and that he 
would soon eat and swallow well, talk well, regain his 
original flesh and strength, and finally make a complete 
recovery. He expressed great encouragement upon 
hearing me say all this, and he commenced treatment at 
once. He went into a very comfortable and profitable 
state of suggestibility, and I gave him, in substance, the 
f ollowing suggestions : 

"Mr. H, you are now comfortable and quiet. All your 
nervous forces are now coming into harmony. No 
nervous concentrations anywhere. Your heart is beating 
regularly ; respiration free and easy, and you are breath- 
ing deeper and stronger all the time. You are breathing 
deeper and stronger; deeper and stronger all the time. 
As you breathe deeper and stronger you are inhaling 
health and vitality. You actually take into your lungs 
the elements of life and health every time you breathe so 



-81- 



deeply. When you breathe strong and deeply, the pure 
air that you take into your lungs imparts to your blood 
the vitalizing oxygen which you so much require. More 
oxygen is what you need, and there is no way on earth 
by which you can get it so readily, so plentifully and so 
pure as you can by deep breathing. As you breathe 
deeply the pure air reaches all parts of your lungs, and 
gives off its oxygen in large quantities to your blood. 
This refreshes you. It reddens and strengthens your 
blood; invigorates digestion, and builds you up in every 
way. Strong deep and easy breathing is what you need. 
Breathe strong and deeply. You are already breathing 
deeper and stronger, breathing deeper and stronger all 
the time, every day, and you will breathe deeper and 
stronger every day. This will build you up, and you will 
rapidly gain in flesh and strength. You will sleep and 
rest well, eat well, swallow well, and talk well. As you 
breathe deeper and stronger every day, you will regain 
your general health and original vigor. Your vocal 
chords will properly vibrate, your voice will return, and 
you will talk well, talk loud, feel well, and you will again 
be cheerful, hopeful and happy. You are already breath- 
ing deeper and stronger, and I can see a bright future for 
you. You will soon be well again. You may make new 
plans for your life work, for, absolutely you will soon be 
well again, and you will be able to do more effective 
work than ever before in your life. As you breathe 
deeper and stronger every day, you inhale health and 
vitality; you eat well, swallow and digest well, build up 
in strength and body and mind; your voice grows 
stronger every day, you talk well, look well, feel well, 
and will soon be well, well from head to foot. Not only 
so, but when you are well again you will be better pre- 
pared to do public work than ever before. Absolutely 
you will be reinforced, physically and spiritually, in 
such a manner as to be able to control people and au- 



—82- 



diences in a way that you could never so effectively do 
before. The best and most successful part of your life 
is before you. Place your whole mind upon your 
cherished life work, and at once begin to make new 
plans for your labors, for you will soon be able to re- 
sume them with renewed energies and greatly enlarged 
spiritual powers. You are now feeling well, breathing 
free and easy, all the functions of your body in perfect 
harmony, and you will feel well all day. You will sleep 
and rest well, rise in the morning feeling refreshed and 
invigorated, eat with a keen relish, swallow well, digest 
well, breathe deeper and stronger every day, talk well, 
look well, and feel well till perfect conditions of health 
are enjoyed. Now, when you wake up you will feel well, 
comfortable, easy and quiet. When you retire tonight 
you will go to sleep with these memories : Now I lay me 
down to sleep. I will sleep well tonight, and I will rest 
well. My subjective entity or soul will take care of my 
physical condition while I sleep. I now forget the cares, 
of the day, and go to sleep, and I will sleep well and rest 
well all night. When I rise in the morning I will feel 
refreshed and invigorated, eat breakfast with a keen 
relish, swallow well, will digest well, breathe freely and 
deeply, and will have a good day. Now I go to sleep. 

"I say these are the memories you will retire with to- 
night, and you cannot forget them. Now you are feeling 
well, easy and quiet, breathing free and easy, and you 
will feel well all day, and better every day till perfect 
conditions of health are reached. Now you may open 
your eyes and wake up." 

I will not enlarge upon the treatment of this case. The 
reader can plainly see the leading thoughts that I pre- 
sented to him, and how I led him away from his old con- 
ditions of weakness and despair, and make him see bright- 
ness and sunshine from morning till night, and from 
night till morning. I repeated the above speeches to him 



-83— 



every day, making them more of a hopeful character as 
he improved. For example, as he began to feel, look and 
talk a little better, I would say to him, "You are look- 
ing better, feeling better, talking better, improving every 
way. You now realize that you have risen above all 
negative conditions of weakness, disease and despair; 
that you are now living upon a different plane, breath- 
ing an atmosphere heavily laden with hope, independence, 
freedom, and courage. As you breathe stronger every 
day, and hear yourself talking loud again, you see and 
realize that health and strength are coming, and it is so. 
Go on! Mjake your plans for future work. Health and 
strength are coming, absolutely coming, and you can 
look ahead to perfect conditions of health, eating well, 
swallowing well, sleeping well, talking well, feeling well, 
looking well, and actually well from head to foot." 

Mr. H. improved from the very first. He now talks 
well, and every organ and function of the body are in 
perfect harmony. He is feeling well, hopeful, cheerful, 
and happy, and preparing for new and renewed efforts 
at his cherished life labors — orphan home and mission- 
ary work. 

In treating patients by suggestion, it should be our aim 
to find out the "besetting sin" of each patient — the 
thought or environment that was instrumental in pros- 
trating him, and then, as rapidly as possible, carry him 
away from that thought or condition, and keep him away 
from it, by continually occupying his mind with hopeful 
thoughts and conditions that are uplifting, refreshing 
and healing in their nature. 

Many of our patients incapacitate themselves by wor- 
rying over their own ills, or their financial conditions, 
while some are found to be suffering from the results of 
sympathy for other people. They see so many sick and 
suffering men, women and children; theirs hearts go out 
after them, and they worry themselves over them till 



—84— 

they are sick. This is very wrong; it is a mistake. Peo- 
ple should not permit the misfortunes or miseries of 
others to disturb or distress them so seriously, for this 
can only harm them, and can in no way benefit those 
with whom they sympathize. We should do all we can 
to relieve the sufferings and wants of people, and rejoice 
in the thought that we have had the opportunity to help 
them. We should be glad that we had the pleasure of 
giving them a kind word and something to eat and wear, 
and take comfort from the remembrance of the bright- 
ness that came to their faces while they listened to our 
encouraging words and accepted our substantial aid. 
We should not worry over them, but be happy to think 
that they went away from us more comfortable and 
happy than when they came to us. 

It requires a little study of each patient in order to 
secure the best results in the practice of suggestion; but 
careful observation and experience will enable anyone 
of ordinary intelligence and skill to make marvelous 
cures by suggestion; to help many poor dejected mortals 
from the very depths of degradation and despair, and 
place them upon a plane of life where they may enjoy 
the freedom of health and good morals, a pleasure to 
their friends and an honor and blessing to their fam- 
ilies. 

Nervous and Mental Troubles. 

Mental troubles, such as fears, delusions, melancholia, 
hallucinations and insanity are seldom ever found in 
well-nourished individuals, for the reason that they are 
in a position to throw them off. Every person is likely 
at times to have worry, grief, etc., but they seldom get 
fixed unless nutrition is neglected. Reason is a brain 
function, and is lessened as the nutrition to the brain, is 
diminished. While one's reasoning faculties are good he 



—85— 

has the power to put away all involuntary thoughts that 
may intrude themselves upon him; but if he permits 
himself to run down physically, when worry or mental 
troubles commence, he is likely to find himself in a de- 
plorable mental and physical condition. All mental 
troubles, except those due to injury of the brain, or some 
actual organic destruction, I believe may be cured by 
proper suggestive treatment, if persisted in. In over- 
coming insanity and mental troubles the nutrition of the 
brain must be the first thing attended to. As you in- 
crease nutrition, the reason increases, and reason is a 
powerful factor, without which you will accomplish but 
little. See that the organs of elimination are active and 
normal. Work up the appetite, and increase the amount 
of food consumed daily: see that plenty of fluids are 
used to furnish the necessary secretions. Lower the 
head once or twice a day, for three or four minutes each 
and manipulate the muscles of the neck and massage the 
head while in this position, suggesting all the time to 
your patient the benefits to be derived; that it brings 
the blood to the head, and increases nutrition to the 
brain. In order to give the student an idea of the sug- 
gestive treatment to follow in cases of this character I 
will give a descriptive detail of one treated at this school. 
On October 9th, 1899, a married lady twenty-six years 
of age, and weighing 113 pounds, came here for treat- 
ment for mental troubles, consisting of some very un- 
welcome thoughts that persisted in harassing her con- 
tinually. She was a lady of an excellent family, and a 
model character. But she had run down physically, did 
not sleep good, and was badly constipated, besides having 
some functional difficulties peculiar to women, but not of 
a serious character. While in this condition she at- 
tended a revival, where the evangelist, (who ought to 
have had some old woman taught him the way of the Lord 
more perfectly) continually harped on "predestination" 



—86— 

and "the unpardonable sin." The lady got to worrying 
over these things, and not strong enough physically to 
throw them off, they fixed themselves on her mind, and 
with these thoughts of having committed the unpardon- 
able sin as a premise, her reasoning now being deductive, 
the logical conclusion would inevitably be that God was 
wicked, and that she herself was the chief of sinners. 
These things grew and became more fixed, as she con- 
tinued to worry, and nutrition thus interfered with, 
helped it along. She was perfectly rational on every 
other subject, and but for her despondent mood — for she 
never laughed or smiled — no one would have known she 
was undergoing such mental torture. It certainly is a 
torture for one's predominative thought while awake and 
the dreams by night to be "predestined to be lost for- 
ever ; no hope for the future ; nothing but hell fire await- 
ing me, and a wicked God who has ordained all this." 
Such thoughts as these were continually in her mind 
every waking moment, and she had no power to throw 
them off. A wise physician at her home, knew that medi- 
cine could not reach her case, and so recommended her 
to try suggestion. She came on the date mentioned, and 
took the first treatment in the evening of the same day. 
She could not be hypnotized, that is, her eyes could not 
be fastened so that she could not open them when she 
pleased. The student will not wonder at this after what 
I have said of the cyclone of thoughts over which she 
had no control. I had her lie down on a couch and close 
her eyes, after having had her look at me for a few 
moments, then I made the long passes from head to foot 
for about ten minutes, which she said made her arms feel 
heavy, and her nerves relaxed, besides a comfortable 
feeling generally. I then made something like the fol- 
lowing suggestions, all the time keeping up the long 
passes, 

"Now, Mrs. ■ as I make these long passes you 



-87- 



will feel a very pleasant influence all over your body. 
Your nervous system becomes very quiet. You feel 
drowsy and heavy from head to foot. You are coming 
more and more into harmony. As you breathe long and 
deep you equalize the circulation of the blood, and stim- 
ulate every organ of the body. Your health has run 
down because of inactive organs of nutrition and elim- 
ination. We will restore harmony of the functions and 
you will soon regain your health of body and mind. As 
we equalize the nerve forces of your body you will sleep 
better at nights, and as we stimulate the organs of secre- 
tion and digestion you will become more and more hun- 
gry. As you eat more and digest it, your nutrition be- 
comes better, and the organs of elimination become more 
active and your bowels will move regularly every day. 
As you breathe deep you throw the health-giving oxygen 
into the blood, which purifies it. The kidneys become 
strong and active, and perform their functions normally, 
throwing off all impurities. You will now begin to im- 
prove your whole physical organism. As nutrition be- 
comes better your reasoning faculties will improve and 
you will soon be well from head to foot." 

After going over these suggestions several times with 
emphasis, harping on eat, drink and sleep, I had her open 
her eyes. I had her come twice a day. The morning 
treatment continued about as above indicated, while 
about the only thing I did in the afternoon was to lower 
the head, and manipulate the head and neck as before 
mentioned. She began to improve at once. She would 
sleep most of the night, and the appetite increased won- 
derfully. She became more hopeful and cheerful, so that 
she laughed and talked as if there was nothing the mat- 
ter. But notwithstanding all this every cloudy day she 
would come to the office saying: ''She was worse than 
ever and could never get well, and had just as well go 
home." I never got discouraged over this, nor would I 



—88— 

entertain such a proposition. This was kept up for four 
weeks with a gradual improvement in all physical condi- 
tions in which she gained nine pounds. I allowed her to 
attend the evening session of our class several times in 
order that she might learn more of the powers of the 
mind to help itself. After she had learned to distinguish 
the two minds, and the functions of the subjective mind, 
I then had easier sailing. I now changed the morning 
treatment, and instead of having her lie down and shut 
her eyes, I had her sit up and look at me while I made a 
half hour's talk to her, which was made with all the 
earnestness at my command. Remember, she was still 
bothered with her thoughts, but they had changed some- 
what. She now considered herself wicked for having 
thought such things of God, etc. Let me give a synopsis 
here of my argument to her just at this juncture. First 
allow me to say that I had taught her the difference be- 
tween inductive and deductive reasoning which she un- 
derstood thoroughly. Objectively she knew that the 
things she thought were absurd and untrue. Here then 
was my starting point in getting the assistance of her 
own auto-suggestion. "Mrs. B., you know these things 
that bother you are not true, don't you?" "Yes," she 
replied, "but I can't get rid of them." "Yes," said I, 
"you can get rid of them, and I am now going to show 
you how. You are not responsible for these thoughts; 
they were thrust upon you at a time when your phy- 
sical condition was such that you were not able to throw 
them off. They became fixed in your subjective mind, 
while the objective mind had not power to resist them. 
Your subjective mind being amenable to suggestion of 
your objective mind, which is now becoming strong and 
able to resist these involuntary intruders, you will now 
exercise it in that direction, by asserting over and over 
that these things are not true and could not possibly be 
true. You see that it is the subjective mind reasoning 
by deduction that has caused all the trouble, and its con- 



—89— 

elusions are very logical; but the premise was wrong to 
start with. Now with the inductive mind let us do a 
little reasoning by first having a fact for our premise. 
First, there is no sin that one can commit that will not 
be forgiven except a denial of God and his Christ. You 
have not denied God nor his Word, therefore you have 
not committed such a sin." I here gave her several 
scriptures to confirm what I said, all to which she con- 
sented and accepted with intense eagerness for me to pro- 
ceed, "Since God is not willing that any should perish, 
but that all might come to repentance, he is not wicked 
but good, isn't he?" "Yes," she replied. "Well now 
then, if there is no unpardonable sin for those who be- 
lieve in God, and you have committed no such sin, and 
God is good, all you have to do is to keep these thoughts 
continually pouring in on the subjective mind, which is 
amenable to your own objective mind, and soon it will 
accept them, and then you will be bothered no more with 
them." 

This is only a very brief outline, along this line, but it 
serves to show how I engaged her mind to help in the 
matter. She at once began to improve in her reasoning 
faculties very rapidly. She is still here at this writing 
in her fifth week, and will in another week go home to 
her husband, stronger in body than she has been for 
years, and all her mental troubles will only be remem- 
bered as a hideous dream. 

The student will observe that but little attention was 
paid to the thinker until after the organ of thought had 
received sufficient nutrition to place it in a more normal 
condition. Where you cannot succeed in this respect, 
there is little hope of success. Some cases of this char- 
acter require a much longer treatment. It should be per- 
sisted in as long as there are any signs of improvement 
physically or mentally. The patient should have some 
one who understands suggestive treatment, as a com- 
panion who will keep them engaged as much as possible 



-90— 



on other things. I consider that under proper condi- 
tions, suggestion approaches nearer to a specific in nerv- 
ous and mental troubles than any and all other methods 
of treatment. 

Epilepsy. 

Congenital epilepsy cannot be cured by suggestion or 
any other treatment. Hystero-epilepsy can be cured by 
suggestion. Most epileptics are very susceptible to sug- 
gestion, and should be treated the same as other nervous 
disorders, by working on the organs of assimilation and 
elimination. Get nutrition to the brain by lowering the 
head and manipulating each day. 

Headache. 

About the most common complaint from which most 
people suffer is headache; there are headaches of va- 
rious kinds, but most all are of a reducible nature. The 
most common of these is sick headache, and generally the 
most severe. It generally commences with a chill, sick 
and vomiting, with soreness of muscles, ringing in the 
head and a general inability to do any work. A sharp 
shooting pain, very intense, generally in the forehead, or 
temple of the left side. The whole head feels sore to the 
touch. The pain increases until the head feels as if it 
would burst. These attacks generally last from one to 
three days. If you will examine closely into these cases 
you will find that the stomach, liver, bowels, kidneys and 
skin have almost suspended their functions. The stu- 
dent will at once observe that to cure a disease of this 
character he must first stop the cause. Since the organs 
of digestion and nutrition have been interfered with, 
they are the ones to receive your first attention. This can- 
not be done in a day or a week. The patient should be 



-91— 



treated daily for a month or six weeks, until every bodily 
function is in perfect working order. For immediate re- 
lief you should start the organs of elimination to working 
at once. To do this I have the patient drink a few swal- 
lows of hot water every few minutes. If the water is 
nauseating use tea instead. Do not insist upon the pa- 
tient eating anything until elimination has commenced. 
Hot beef broth may be used, if the patient prefer, to tea. 
After getting the patient to take several drinks of the 
fluid used, put him in a suggestible condition, and make 
your suggestions to the desired end in view. 

Neuralgia Headache. 

These are also very common, but can more easily be 
removed. Neuralgia is said to be the cry of a nerve for 
nutrition. This kind of headache is generally found in 
persons who are bloodless, and as the head is first to 
suffer from a limited supply of blood, the treatment 
should consist in bringing the blood to the head. This 
can be done by lowering the head or by a vigorous 
rubbing. Hot hands to the front and back of the head 
will generally relieve it. Other headaches are caused by 
too much blood in the head; in this case do anything to 
reduce the blood supply. Make passes from head to foot, 
and stimulate the organs of digestion and elimination. 

Dentistry. 

Suggestion can be used in dentistry with better results 
than any other anaesthetic. I have hypnotized children 
and old people and had dentists extract teeth without a 
partical of pain. The same can be done in filling teeth. 
It is really not necessary to have a patient in a hypnotic 
condition to operate on to avoid pain. This can be done 
by the post-hypnotic suggestion, or by simple suggestion 
alone. I was called in to see an old lady one day who 



-92- 



was suffering with the grippe. Her married daughter 
was just in the act of starting to the dentist to have some 
teeth filled. She was nervous, and had not slept any the 
night before, and was in a poor condition for dental work. 
I suggested to her to let me hypnotize her and quiet her 
nerves, to which she consented. She was an excellent 
subject. I gave her suggestions that she would ex- 
perience no pain while in the dentist's chair, and that she 
would keep relaxed and not notice any discomforts of 
any kind. She had no trouble of any kind and was de- 
lighted with the results. Here is what a dentist has to 
say about how he uses suggestion without hynotism. He 
is a graduate of the same school in Suggestion with us, 
and understands his business. Mr. G-. C. Schwarz, D. D., 
of Edwardsville, 111. He says: 

"I use suggestion in my daily practice to produce in- 
sensibility in variouss operations, but I wish most par- 
ticularly to show to what extent it may be used for the 
painless extraction of teeth. Placing the patient in the 
chair, in the proper position, I proceed to calmly assure 
him that if he will follow my directions I will extract the 
tooth absolutely without pain. I now have him close his 
eyes, at the same time stroking the affected side of his 
jaw, explaining as I do this that by this process I am 
able to send all sensations of the face and jaw to the 
lower part of the body, impressing the fact upon him 
that where there are no nerves you naturally feel nothing. 
After having worked in this way for perhaps some thirty 
seconds or perhaps a minute, always having the eyes 
tightly closed, (for I have them understand that by 
opening the eyes they bring back the nerve forces to the 
face and head, thereby producing sensation, I then 
reach for my lance (and I wish to say right here that you 
can in all cases tell by the use of the lance whether or not 
your suggestions have sufficiently reached the subjective 
mind to render the operation painless). Now I have the 
patient open his mouth, repeatedly warning him to keep 



—93— 

the eyes closed, lance the gums deep enough to cause a 
free flow of blood ; have him open his eyes so that he can 
see the blood when spitting. Now this assures him that 
you have produced analgesia sufficient to use the knife, 
and when you have demonstrated this to him, he no 
longer questions the rest of the operation. Now have 
him close the eyes once more, stroke the jaw a few more 
times, reach for your forceps and extract the tooth, sug- 
gesting all the time that there will be no bad after- 
effects. This modus operandi will work like a charm on 
eight out of every ten patients of the age from six to 
eighteen years. Nothing but forcible suggestion. I do 
not put him to sleep. I practice this on from four to fif- 
teen subjects daily with the most favorable results.'* 

Dysmenorrhoea. (Painful Menstruation.) 

Here is where the medical doctor has very little suc- 
cess, but a field where the suggestionest need never fail. 
Dysmenorrhoea might well be called a constipation of 
the uterus, and the trouble is generally a concomitant of 
constipation, and should be treated the same with the 
exception of the actual suggestions. 

It generally requires one or two month's treatment to 
cure permanently a case of this kind, and the patient 
should continue the treatment until a cure is effected. 
The nutrition should be worked up by suggesting hunger 
appetite etc. I have cured a score of very severe cases 
of this kind and never made a failure. Irregular or de- 
layed menstruation, can be as easily cured by keeping the 
patient's attention riveted on the day that menstruation 
is normally due, and by the increase of nutrition, and 
building up of the general health. In the treatment of 
all functional diseases, the head should be lowered a few 
minutes every day. 



Goitre (Big Neck). 

If taken in time every goitre can be cured by sugges- 
tion and massage. Goitre is an obstruction of the 
thyroid glands. When this obstruction becomes large 
and hard, and has fixed itself there for a number of 
years, it is hard to remove by any process ; it is too dan- 
gerous for a surgical operation and is never resorted to 
unless to save life. To treat goitre, induce a suggestible 
condition, and stimulate and equalize the circulation. 
Manipulate the goitre gently, as you make your sugges- 
tions, explaining what the goitre is, and how it will be re- 
moved. It takes generally from three weeks to six 
months to remove goitre. I have removed three from the 
necks of young ladies, none of which had more than three 
years growth. Pour weeks was the longest any of them 
were treated. 

Obesity. 

Our school was the first to report a case of this kind 
cured by suggestion. When we remember that the mind 
controls the functions, sensations and conditions of the 
body, we can understand why obesity can be cured, that 
is when it is of an abnormal nature. It would be diffi- 
cult to reduce the flesh on a person who was in perfectly 
healthful and normal condition. So would it be hard to 
increase the flesh on one who was naturally thin. When 
dropsical conditions begin to develop, the feet and limbs 
begin to swell, the heart weak, etc., it is high time that 
something must be done. If not, fatty degeneration of 
the heart takes place, the walls of the blood vessels thin, 
so that the water seaps through, causing dropsy, and if 
not checked death is the result. The cause of all this be- 
gins in the organs of elimination. They are not perform- 
ing their functions properly, and should be the first at- 
tended to. Nutrition has been in excess of waste, which 



—95— 

must be reversed. The circulation and elimination of the 
bowels, kidneys and skin should be stimulated, and sug- 
gestions that the walls of the blood vessels would become 
thick, that the water would be absorbed, that waste 
would be in excess of nutrition, and the patient was get- 
ting thinner every day, etc. I reduced a person nine 
pounds in four weeks and removed all dropsical condi- 
tions, which were very marked at the beginning. 

Rheumatism or Rheumatic Fever. 

Of all persons whom a doctor of medicine is called upon 
to treat, and the one that gives him the most anxiety 
and baffles his skill, it is the one suffering from chronic 
rheumatism. We will not mention here the different 
kinds of rheumatism for the simple reason, all kinds will 
be treated alike, consequently enumerating them will be 
of no avail. 

There are three theories given as the probable cause of 
acute rheumatism. First, the metabolic ; second, the Neu- 
rotic ; third, the Germ theory. Of these the Metabolic 
theory holds most universal sway, which attributes the 
disease to tissue changes whereby an excess of sarco- 
lactic acid prevails in the blood. This pent-up acid is due 
to an unhealthy action of the kidneys and liver. The 
liver being torpid is not aiding in the duodenal digestion; 
and the kidneys not eliminating all the urates. 

In the first place the blood is so surcharged with uric 
acid and as a result the so-called gouty deposits make 
their appearance in and around the joints in the shape of 
lime salts. These lime salts are productive of much pain 
upon every movement of the inflamed joint, and by their 
encroachment upon the adjacent tissues the joints be- 
come swollen, thus rendering life a miserable burden. 
Uracidaemia, or the Metabolic theory, may be then de- 
fined as that perversion of the nutritive functions in 
which the waste products (1) nitrogenous metabolism, 



—96- 



and (2) the consumption of nitrogenous food are re- 
tained in the form of uric acid salts instead of being 
eliminated as urea. 

Symptoms. — The disease may set in with a chill and 
high fever, sore throat, tonsilitis — fever rises quickly^ 
withone or more joints painful — within twenty-four 
hours of the outset the disease is fully developed. The 
temperature ranges from 102 degrees to 105 degrees. The 
tongue is covered with a white fur — loss of appetite — 
thirst, constipation and a scanty, high-colored acid urine. 
Sweating may be profuse. The knees, ankles, elbows and 
wrists are the joints usually attacked, but all joints may 
be afflicted. One special feature of this disease is that 
there is a tending of the symptoms to abate in one joint 
only to come up with renewed energy in another. The 
blood is rapidly altered in that the patient becomes rap- 
idly anaemic. 

In considering the particular line of treatment to be 
adopted there can be no doubt as to how the suggestions 
shall be given. It is plainly apparent that not only the 
over acid products should be removed, but to prevent 
the formation of any more. It is true that in rheumatic 
trouble that the symptoms do not come up until the liver 
and kidneys — the two main organs involved in the luxuat 
consumption of the nitrogenous foods — have had ample 
time to become functionally deranged, the liver so much 
so that the duodenal digestion is so much impaired that 
the formation of uric acids is an every-day occurrence. 
When you first visit your patient you should, if possible, 
see that they are comfortably placed on a soft mattress. 
The patient should wear flannel. Blankets should be pro- 
cured for the patient to sleep between, in order to lessen 
the tendency to catch cold and to obviate the unpleasant 
clamminess that attends sweating. A milk diet is best 
suited, together with alkaline and mineral waters. The 
unusual thirst demands plenty of water. You may give 
plenty of weak lemonade. If milk is not well borne, as 



—97— 

we will sometimes find, other liquids such as soups, bar- 
ley waters and broths may be given. Meats of all kinds 
should be prohibited. The patient should eat as little as 
possible of food containing sugars and starches. All 
alcoholic drinks should be positively forbidden. The 
local treatment is quite important, in that as it both af- 
fects ,the mind of the patient and that it is beneficial per 
se. The joints, if very painful, might be wrapped either 
in hot cotton or hot flannel cloths. In some cases cold 
cloths are more serviceable than hot ones. If you be a 
medicine doctor, and your patient is one who desires 
medicine, these hot cloths can be well saturated with 
Fuller's solution. If the suffering is very intense, and 
your patient is not very susceptible to suggestions, there 
will be no objections in giving a hypodermic injection of 
morphine, of say one-sixteenth of a grain of morphine, 
then pour your suggestions in on top of that. 

You see now quite well how to apply your suggestions 
when you know the cause of the disease. Let your sug- 
gestions be in the line of building up the patient's gen- 
eral condition. Toning up the digestive organs, purifying 
the blood, hastening the assimilation and appropriation 
of food, keeping the liver well stimulated, thus keeping 
the portal system in a healthful condition. Stimulate the 
eliminative organs to speedily eliminate all poisons, 
especially should the suggestions be directed to the kid- 
neys in ridding the blood of its uric acids. 



—98- 



CHAPTER X. 



HABITS. 

Tobacco Habit. 

In the treatment of all kinds of habits, there is nothing 
that approaches suggestion. In fact, there never was a 
habit of any kind ever broken, or corrected, that sugges- 
tion in some of its forms did not play an important part. 
The writer once knew a case where a druggist had be- 
come an inveterate smoker, smoking twelve to fifteen 
cigars a day. It was injuring his health, and he could not 
quit, as he thought, without some material help. So he 
decided to take the Keeley Cure. He accordingly sent 
for the ingredients, which came in a bottle in liquid 
form. It happened that the package was delivered af 
the store, while the druggist was at dinner. The clerk 
who received it received also, at the same time an idea, 
and that was, to try the power of his employer's imagina- 
tion. He hurriedly poured the contents of the bottle into 
another and substituted pure water, with a little of some- 
thing to make it the same color of the genuine article. 
Then sealing it up so as not to be detected he awaited re- 
sults. The druggist at once began taking his medicine, 
according to the direction on the bottle. He only smoked 
a few cigars that afternoon ; and the next day still fewer, 
declaring that he had no desire to smoke, so he quit, en- 
tirely cured. Now what cured him? His own auto-sug- 
gestion — nothing else, for he had taken nothing else. 
The tobacco habit is very easily cured by suggestion when 



-99-^ 



a user of the weed really wants to quit. Every boy, and 
young man who is nailing down his own coffin lid by 
smoking cigarettes, can be easily cured if he so desires. A 
most excellent young man who played the organ in one 
of my meetings in Iowa, was a slave to the deadly cigar- 
ette. I asked him to let me cure him. He said he could 
not be hypnotized, as he had been tried by Prof. Flint 
and several traveling hypnotists. I told him that made 
no difference, that if he would go with me to my room I 
could give him the "glassy stare' ' in two minutes. He 
consented, and sure enough he was no trouble to hypno- 
tize at all. After a few physical tests to get him real 
suggestible, I made about the following suggestions to 
him. "Mr. S. — you are a slave to a habit that will cut 
short your life. You want to free yourself now, and you 
will do so very easily. Your days of smoking, sir, are 
now over. You will never smoke another cigarette in 
peace. You will have no more desire to smoke, and if 
through curiosity, or otherwise you ever attempt to smoke 
another cigarette it will make you deathly sick. Do you 
understand, sir?" He nodded in the affirmative, I re- 
peated in substance the suggestions several times in a 
very emphatic tone of voice. I then woke him up, and he 
went to supper. He came to church early that evening, 
and as pale as a ghost. Coming up to me, he said: 
"Say doctor, she took." "How is that?" said I. "Why, 
I liked to vomited up my socks," said he: "After sup- 
per I thought I would try a cigarette just for fun, I 
didn 't want to smoke and ought to have had sense enough 
not to try, but I was curious to see what effect your sug- 
gestions would have." I gave one more treatment to 
take all desire away, and he was radically and perma- 
nently cured. I had a letter from him some time after, 
saying that he had no desire whatever to smoke. This is 
only one out of several that could be reported, where sug- 
gestion was as equally effective. 



—100— 

Morphine Habit. 

This is one of the hardest and most difficult of all 
habits to break. A slave to morphine is really to be 
pitied. When will the regular qualified physician stop 
making these slaves? I presume not while morphine is 
still manufactured. I would not advise the lay student 
to undertake a bad case of morphine habit, until he has 
had sufficient experience to educate his patience. "We 
have only had one of this kind at our school. We cured 
her completely. An old gentleman saw an ad. of our 
school, and wrote us about his wife, who was sixty years 
of age, and who, owing to several functional troubles 
had become addicted to morphine thirty years ago. We 
wrote him that we could cure her if she would come to 
the school. One day, unannounced, they both came in. 
It fell to my lot to treat her. She had no faith, she said, 
in such a wild goose chase, since she had gone to every- 
thing in the country, and as a last resort, till now, had 

tried Prof. 's wonderful absent method for two 

months without benefit. She had prolapsus of the blad- 
der and stomach troubles, and the only comfort, such as 
it was, was found in morphine. I tried to hypnotize her, 
but it "didn't take," but I went right on with the sug- 
gestions just the same. I gave suggestions to quiet the 
nervous system, making the long passes all the time, and 
suggestions that the stomach would become strong and 
normal ; worked upon the appetite, circulation, etc. While 
I would be making passes and suggestions the old lady 
would stick her underlip out and screw up her face, as 
much as to say, "What a goose I am to come away 
down here just to have a fellow make passes and talk, 
talk, talk, like a parrot; this will never stop my pains 
nor the demands for morphine." This was kept up for 
about a week before much improvement was made, how- 
ever, the morphine was handed me the next day and it is 
still in my possession. After the first week she began to 



—101— 

improve, at which time she began to draw in her lip, and 
believe more in what was being said to her. She got 
more easy every treatment, when in the second week of 
treatment she went into deep hypnosis. She began to 
sleep better at nights ; quit throwing up her food, picked 
up in flesh and I never saw more of a change in a person 
in the four weeks she stayed at the school, at the end of 
which time she returned home entirely cured. A letter 
from her a month later stated that she was doing fine. 

The Liquor Habit. 

Every unfortunate who has become addicted to this 
habit, and comes to the student of suggestion, in earnest, 
can be more permanently and radically cured, than by 
any other process on earth. There are two kinds of 
drinkers. One who drinks regularly, and the other 
periodically. The latter is the one who gets along all 
right for two or three months at a time without a drop, 
and really without any desire for it; but alas, the desire 
siezes him and try as he may, he has not the will power 
to throw it off. It is not the stuff he craves, it is the 
effect. Now, what does he want in this case? He wants 
his will power of resistance strengthened, and that can- 
not be done in any other way like proper suggestions and 
under proper conditions. This kind of a patient should 
begin treatment at least a month before one of his spells 
is due. The regular drinker may drink because he likes 
it, but most generally he drinks because he thinks he 
needs a stimulant. Both grow on him until his system 
demands a stimulant and his appetite demands satisfac- 
tion. In his case, if he really wants to quit, and will en- 
gage with the doctor of suggestion earnestly, he can be 
as easily cured. His power of resistance can be strength- 
ened; his nervous system built up, the desire and appe- 
tite entirely taken away. These kind of patients should 
be treated once or twice a day until the habit is broken 



—102— 

sufficiently to insure an appetite for food, and sleep at 
night can be secured. The student should be very earn- 
est in the treatment of all kinds of habits, with all the 
confidence in himself possible. He should never say, 
"I. will try, or maybe, or I don't know." Be positive, 
and say, "I can, or I will do so and so." Nothing short 
of this will accomplish much in suggestion. You may, 
and will fail sometimes then, but it is not your fault, and 
you should not consider it. Go right at the next one just 
the same as though there could be no possibility of a fail- 
ure. If you have no confidence in yourself you cannot 
generate or create it in another. 

Habits of Motion and Sensation. 

Children become addicted to many habits in early life 
which are allowed to run until they become fixed for life. 
Biting the finger nails, stammering, winking the eyes, 
bed-wetting, and then later, lying and swearing. Any 
and all of these can be speedily and permanently cured 
by suggestion if taken in time. Simply follow the in- 
struction given in the chapter on the education of chil- 
dren in natural sleep, or induce a hypnosis and make the 
suggestion for the effect you desire. After stammering 
has been fixed for years, it cannot be cured in this way. 
It then requires an educational system in addition to 
simple suggestion. A stutterer can always sing without 
any difficulty. Why is this, Because he is always 
breathing the vowels. It is the consonants that he 
stumbles on, and he must be educated to breathe right 
and hold the vowel before trying to speak a consonant. 
I have treated several stammerers, and there was never 
one that could stammer while under hypnosis when told 
that he could not. How many men have a habit of 
pulling at their watch chains, or running their hand 
through the hair, or twirling something in their fingers, 
which has become so fixed they cannot break it. Public 



—103— 

men form habits in gestures, gesticulations, and gyrations, 
which are simply ridiculous sometimes. Who is there 
who has not seen strong, able-bodied, intellectual men 
down town with a string on their finger. They have a 
habit of forgetting everything they were sent after. 
These same men would write an important business let- 
ter and rush off to mail it on the first train ; but the wife 
would find that same letter in the inside coat pocket a 
week later. And then habits of life, such as eating, 
drinking, breathing and sleeping. "When will people 
stop to consider the importance of these things? Here 
the student of suggestion has a large and varied field, 
for all of these can be changed and corrected when it is 
desired. I deem it of sufficient importance to emphasize, 
habits of the "mouth." What other organ of the body 
causes so much trouble, sorrow and sickness as this one? 
It is this that lies, swears, slanders, drinks, eats and fills 
our stomach with poison, bringing premature gray hairs 
and an early grave. When will we learn to keep from 
putting in and letting out of this organ, if I may call it 
such, the things that defile us, and contaminate others? 
How much good, on the other hand, it is capable of ac- 
complishing when properly used. With it we may bless 
ourselves, and with it bring joy and gladness to many sad 
and aching hearts. 



—104— 



CHAPTER XL 



ABSENT TREATMENT. 

That mental telepathy is an established fact is no 
longer a question by those who have investigated it, and 
anyone who denies it is not entitled to be called a sceptic, 
he is simply ignorant. If the student desires any further 
proof of this assertion let him read Dr. Hudson's Law 
of Physic Phenomena and Frank Podmore on Thought 
Transference, and make a few experiments, and if he is 
not convinced, he will not likely succeed very well with 
suggestion or any other science. When I say that mental 
telepathy is an established fact, I do not infer or imply 
that most of the so-called absent treatment practiced by 
magnetic healers is of any special benefit. I believe most 
of it to be a farce and a fraud, other than the simple sug- 
gestions that are sent the patients in " stock" letters. 
Any student of mental science, though he be a mere tyro 
knows that necessary mental conditions must exist be- 
fore any phenomena can be produced. The only good 
result in the kind of absent treatment as practiced by 
those who so widely advertise their "wonderful power" 
is in following the instructions of the "stock" letter 
which generally requires the patient to "Increase the 
amount of fluids you drink each day and eat heartily." 
" Think often during the day of the benefits you wish to 
obtain." "Lie down for a few minutes after each meal, 
and think of your treatment." "At nine o'clock every 
evening retire to a quiet room, lie down and shut your 



—105— 

eyes, relax every muscle and concentrate your mind upon 
me." "I will also be in the subjective condition at the 
same time, and will transmit health impressions to your 
mind provided you follow instructions and are not dis- 
turbed. " ' ' The treatment will last fifteen minutes. ' ' As 
before stated, some good may result from this kind of 
"distant" treatment, but I deny that any subtle force 
passes from the operator to the patient. It is very evi- 
dent on the face of the whole thing that it is simple sug- 
gestion that acts as the remedial agent, and such non- 
sense, and the prostitution of the God-given power of 
telepathy which is within every man, will never educate 
the people to the potency and simplicity of the real 
power. I have met several of these "distant magne- 
tizers," and no less than a dozen of them have taken our 
course here in the Parsons School of Suggestive Thera- 
peutics, after having taken the "noble course" of the 
magnetic healers, and not one of them have I seen that 
could give the first function of the subjective mind. I de- 
mand demonstrable facts, and am ready to accept such 
from any source, and I will teach nothing that cannot be 
thus demonstrated. I believe in telepathy, because I 
have tried it, and found it to exist. However, I must state 
that I experimented for about two years before I was 
fully satisfied that the phenomena was not the result of 
coincidence. A person is too apt to deny the reality of a 
thing after a few failures, but I did nothing of the kind. 
While several persons got well while I was experiment- 
ing with absent treatment upon them, and without their 
knowledge, still I thought they might have done so any- 
how. So I tried other experiments in order to satisfy 
myself that it was no coincidence. I will give here, one 
in particular. In October, 1898, I was in Coffeyville, 
Kansas, a distance of thirty-one miles from my home at 
Parsons. I had intended to go home the last of the week, 
but changed my mind, and so wrote my wife that I would 
not come until the first of the following week. The let- 



—106— 

ter went to Parsons at noon on Friday and was delivered 
at my residence at 6 p. m. the same day. After I mailed 
the letter I took a notion to run up home on the follow- 
ing day, which was Saturday. As there was but one 
mail a day I had no other opportunity of notifying my 
wife of the change in my coming. So I concluded to try 
telepathy. Accordingly when I retired at night I thought 
intently for ten or fifteen minutes just before going to 
sleep of impressing my wife during the night that I 
would be at home the next day. Now she already had 
my letter saying, I would not be home till the next week, 
but when she got up on Saturday morning, she told the 
children that "Papa will be at home today," and when 
I arrived at the house at 12 :20 noon, she had dinner in 
waiting, looking for me. Was this coincidence? 

I stopped a case of congenital epilepsy for five weeks 
once while I was holding a meeting in a town, and the 
person treated never knew what stopped them. It never 
had occurred before so long in the history of the per- 
son's life. Was it coincidence? But now to the theory. 
I can do no better here than to quote the propositions of 
Mr. Hudson, whose pupil I am, and whose hypothesis I 
believe. I think he has established the following propo- 
sitions, at least provisionally: — 

1. There is inherent in man, a power which enables 
him to communicate his thoughts to others, independently 
of objective means of communication. 

2. A state of perfect passivity on the part of the per- 
cipient is the most favorable condition for the reception 
of telepathic impressions or communications. 

3. There is nothing to differentiate natural sleep from 
induced sleep. 

4. The subjective mind is amenable to control by 
suggestion during natural sleep just the same as it is 
during induced sleep. 

5. The condition of natural sleep, being the most per- 
fect passive condition attainable, is the best condition 



—107— 

for the reception of telepathic impressions by the sub- 
jective mind. 

6. The most perfect condition for the conveyance of 
telepathic impressions is that of natural sleep. 

7. The subjective mind of the agent can be compelled 
to communicate telepathic impressions to a sleeping per- 
cipient by strongly willing it to do so just previous to 
going to sleep. The chain of reasoning embraced in the 
foregoing propositions seems to be perfect; and it is 
thought that sufficient facts have been adduced to sustain 
each proposition which is not self evident, or confirmed 
with the common experience of mankind. The conclusion 
is irresistible that the best possible condition for the con- 
veyance of therapeutic suggestions from the healer to the 
patient is attained when both are in a state of natural 
sleep; and that such suggestion can be so communicated 
by an effort of will on the part of the healer just before 
going to sleep." I will not go into detail here, with the 
many experiments of myself or others ; suffice it to say 
that Dr. Hudson says that he with one or two others 
never made a single failure in over one hundred cases. 

Little need be said regarding the mode of operation as 
it is apparent from what has been said that the method 
is as simple as it is effective. All that is required on the 
part of the operator is that he shall be possessed of an 
earnest desire to cure his patient ; that he shall concen- 
trate his mind, just before going to sleep, upon the work 
in hand, and direct his subjective mind to occupy itself 
during the night in conveying therapeutic suggestions to 
the patient. To that end the operator must accustom 
himself to the assumption that his subjective mind is a 
distinct entity ; that it must be treated as such, and guid- 
ed and directed in the work to be done. The work is 
possibly more effective if the operator knows the charac- 
ter of the desease with which the patient is afflicted, as 
he would then be able to give his directions more specif- 
ically. But much may be left to instinct, of which the 



—^108 — 

subjective mind is the source. It seems reasonable to sup- 
pose however, that if that instinct is educated by objec- 
tive training it will be all the better. Be this as it may, 
the fact remains that all men possess the power to allev- 
iate human suffering, to a greater or less degree, by this 
method. There is a practical and immediate reward 
accompanying every effort to heal the sick by the method 
herein indicated. It consists in this, that in every earnest 
effort to convey therapeutic suggestion or impressions to 
a patient during sleep is inevitably followed by a dream- 
less sleep on the part of the healer. It would seem that 
the subjective mind, following the command or suggestion 
of the healer, occupies itself with the work it is directed 
to do, to the exclusion of all else ; and hence the physical 
environments of the sleeper fails to produce peripheral 
impressions strong enough to cause the dreams which 
ordinarily result from such impressions. I believe it pos- 
sible to convey our thoughts to another at a distance, 
also in the waking state, if the necessary conditions can 
be obtained. I will here insert a letter of Dr. Pitzer's of 
St. Louis on "Healing at a Distance/ ' and which was 
published in the Suggester and Thinker, a monthly jour- 
nal edited by Kobt. Sheerin of Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. 
Pitzer is an honest, conscientious christian gentleman, 
and his cures have been many and marvelous, and we can 
do no better than to close this lesson with his letter which 
is as follows: 

"Distant healing is a success. It may be practiced by 
purely mental processes, while the healer is wide awake, 
and the patient either awake or asleep, preferably while 
he is asleep; and the distance is no hindrance to success 
in any case. 

The most successful and available method of distant 
healing, and the one we advocate most, is a combination 
of written suggestions and mental efforts, the treatment 
being carried on while patient and healer are in a nor- 



—109— 

mal, waking state, and they may be thousands of miles 
apart. Distant healing is no theory with me, for I have 
demonstrated its truth in actual practice. People who 
doubt or deny that diseases can be cured and habits cor- 
rected by suggestion and mental efforts at a distance, are 
simply ignorant of the laws that control their bodies, and 
there are many people of this class. They are not to be 
blamed, for they have not made a special study of this 
subject; or if they have, they have not been able, from 
some cause, to comprehend it. We find them in every 
walk of life ; not only among the common people, but in 
all professions ; especially do we find them in the medical 
profession. In fact, the majority of physicians dispute 
the assertion at once, when we say that we relieve or cure 
disease by suggestion alone, in any case, either by present 
or distant treatment. But the evidence upon which the 
common and professional people predicate their argu- 
ments against the different methods of suggestive treat- 
ment are all negative. They have seen it fail; or they 
have tried it themselves and failed. And what does this 
signify? Failures, and men and women who fail, do not 
count for anything against successes and against men 
and women who actually succeed. Negative evidence is 
worthless by the side of positive knowledge. I say I 
know suggestion cures, because I have successfully used 
it in hundreds of cases, and have wrought cures by sug- 
gestion alone, where other popular means, including medi" 
cines, had totally failed. If another man fails to do 
these things under similar conditions, it does not prove 
my methods to be worthless nor do away with my success ; 
it only shows that he is not up to the business of curing 
in this way, that's all. 

I will here detail the treatment of a case of verbal sug- 
gestion, where I had the patient before me, in my office, 
every day. I will then show the patient how I should have 
treated the same patient at a distance by written sug- 
gestions and mental efforts. By comparing present and 



—110- 
absent treatment in this way, the reader may be able to 
more readily comprehend the principles upon which dis- 
tant treatment is successfully practiced. 

On M]ay 23rd. 1898, Mr. B. age 47, was sent to me for 
treatment by one of my friends, and he gave me, in 
substance, the following history: 

"I was taken sick last March, a year ago. I have not 
been able to go to business or do any work since I was 
taken sick, and I am getting no better. I have had the 
advice of six as good physicians as I could find in this 
city (St. Louis). Some of them treated me for a month 
or so, and when I would get no relief I would try another ; 
one of them treated me six months, but all without any 
permanent benefit. I am greatly disheartened, and I very 
reluctantly apply to you for treatment, for I was scarcely 
able to get here. I suffer terribly from neuralgia, or 
rheumatism in the back of my head, and in my neck and 
shoulders also. I am frequently taken with weak spells, 
almost faint, and have to lie down. I am very short of 
breath all the time, especially when I exert myself a little. 
My face, hands, feet, legs and abdomen are greatly 
swollen or puffed up, which you can readily see, and the 
doctors tell me I have the dropsy. I have had several 
bad spells of nosebleed; nothing will completely stop it; 
it continues to bleed for two or three days, till I get so 
weak that I can sit up no longer, then it gradually ceases. 
I live in constant fear of these spells of nosebleed, for 
they depress me so, and I am afraid they may, sometime, 
bleed me to death. They keep me looking very pale all 
the time, no color of blood in my face. I have taken 
quarts of medicine, but seemingly, all to no purpose. 
Now, I should like to know what you think you can do for 
me. 

I examined Mr. B. very carefully, and my following 
speech to him reveals his true condition at that time, 
shows the reader how I approached him, and how I man* 
aged the case by verbal suggestion in my office. 



— Ill— 

"Mr. B., you are suffering from a complication of neu- 
ralgia and rheumatism, and weakness of the heart; you 
have no organic disease of the heart ; it is only weak, and 
all the blood vessels in your body are weak and relaxed, 
as well as your heart and your dropsy and nosebleed are 
owing to this weak condition of your heart and the ves- 
sels that circulate your blood. The walls of the blood 
vessels are weak and relaxed that the watery element of 
your blood settles in the tissues all over the body, and 
this is called dropsy. When you have nosebleed, and 
the blood itself strains through the walls of the vessels, 
they are so very weak and relaxed. 

"Mr. B., I know exactly what is the matter with you, 
and I can cure you too. You have the latent forces 
within your body, when properly called out, to restore 
you to perfect health. I can, by suggestion, at once en- 
gage the life forces within you, to improve the nutrition 
of your heart, and invigorate it, and strengthen all the 
blood vessels leading to and from it. As the heart grows 
stronger and the walls of the blood vessels improve in 
tonicity and become impervious, no more water can es- 
cape or get out of the blood and settle in the flesh, all 
dropsical effusion will be arrested and your nose will not 
bleed any more. All of the water now in the flesh of your 
face, hands, body and etc., will be carried away by ab- 
sorption. This will relieve you of your dropsical condi- 
tion, prevent the oppressed feelings and weak spells from 
which you have suffered, and the fresh natural color will 
return to your face, your neuralgia and rheumatism will 
go away, and you will be well from head to foot. 

This plain speech interested Mr. B. very much, and I 
had his entire attention. He was already inspired with 
hope, and thought that he could plainly see that there 
was some help for him. I then explained to him how we 
could engage the silent forces in his body to cure him by 
suggestion ; how his subjective mind had absolute control 
over all the function of the body; how we could relieve 



—112— 

his pains, invigorate his heart, remove the water from the 
flesh of his body, prevent his nose from bleeding any 
more, and he was ready, ever eager, to take the treat- 
ment, and I immediately commenced with him in the 
following manner. 

"Mr. B., I see that you realize that you are commenc- 
ing a method of treatment that will immediately help you 
and finally cure you, and it is so. Now, I want you to 
assume that you are going to lapse into an easy condi- 
tion of quiet sleep. As you sit in the chair ; please lock 
your hands; relax yourself as well as you can; and as I 
hold my hand in front of; and a little above your eyes; 
please direct your gaze at the end of my fingers ; let noth- 
ing divert your attention; but look steadily and listen 
to me while I talk. As you fix your gaze and steadily 
look at the ends of my fingers; you will very soon ob- 
serve a quiet, easy feeling coming over you. Your head 
feels easy ; your arms and hands feel heavy ; and a quiet ; 
sleepy feeling comes all over your body. You are feeling 
very sleepy. Your eyelids are getting very heavy; very 
heavy; and you can hardly keep your eyes open any 
longer. Sleep is coming. Your eyelids are heavy ; heavy ; 
closing; closing; closing; sleepy; sleepy; sleepy; your 
eyes are closed ; closed ; closed ; and you are sound asleep ■ 
sound asleep from head to foot. 

* ' You are now sound asleep ; and every function of 
your body is coming into harmony, one with another. 
Your nervous system is perfectly quiet; your heart beat- 
ing regularly and strong; respiration free and easy; 
and you are feeling perfectly comfortable and quiet. 
Your head, neck and shoulders now feel perfectly easy; 
your heart is beating stronger ; the blood vessels are con- 
tracting and becoming impervious to the escape of water 
or blood; the water in your face; hands and legs is all 
going away ; going away ; and you are already breathing 
free and easy; feeling easy quiet and comfortable from 
head to foot ; and from this day you will be entirely free 



—113— 

from fear of nosebleed; for your nose will not bleed 
any more; for the blood vessels are getting strong and 
impervious ; and, absolutely; your nose can not bleed 
any more. Your nose will not bleed any more ; it cannot 
bleed any more. You are sleeping well; eating well; di- 
gesting well; heart beating stronger every day; water 
leaving your face; hands and legs; and you are rapidly 
improving in every way. Now when you wake up you will 
feel better than you have felt for a long time. Your neck, 
head and shoulders will feel easy and comfortable; and 
your heart will beat regularly and strong; you will 
breathe easy and deep; absolutely have no more nose- 
bleed; feel better in every way; cheerful; hopeful; and 
happy. You will grow stronger every day; and, finally 
you will be well from head to foot. When I count five 
you may open your eyes and wake up. One, two, three, 
four, five. Open your eyes and wake up." 

I repeated in substance the above formula several times 
to Mr. B., and he waked up feeling refreshed and invig- 
orated, and went away very much encouraged. He 
returned every day for awhile, and, after putting him 
to sleep, I repeated about the same lecture to him, only 
I made the suggestions a little stronger — more positive — 
as he improved. For example, I would say to him: 
"Your head, neck, and shoulders feel perfectly well. 
Your heart is beating stronger every day; and the water 
in your face, hands and legs is all gone. Your nose 
bleeds no more. Your nose will not, cannot bleed any 
more and you are getting stronger every day. You eat 
well, sleep well, look well and are rapidly gaining in 
health and strength of body and mind, and will soon be 
well from head to foot." 

He always went away feeling cheerful and hopeful, 
better in every way. He actually improved from the 
very first day of the treatment, never had another nose- 
bleed, and in five weeks from the day he commenced the 
treatment with me, he went to work and he has not 



—114 — 

missed a single day from the work since he commenced. 
He eats well, sleeps well, does his work well, and walks 
up hill, nearly a mile, every evening on his return from 
work, and will soon be as well and strong as ever in his 
life. This a clear and important case in office practice, 
where suggestion cured the patient, for Mr. B. has not 
taken a grain of any kind of medicine since he com- 
menced treatment with me. 

Now for the method of treating the above case at a 
distance. Well, let us suppose this patient to be a thou- 
sand miles distant from me. He writes me a letter con- 
taining the same description of his ailments above given. 
I reply to him and make the same statement to him in 
writing that I made to him here in my office, where I 
commenced by saying: "Mr. B., you are suffering from 
a complication of neuralgia and rheumatism," etc. 
Following this, I explain to him how I can by suggestion, 
engage the silent forces within him to bring into harmony 
all the functions of his body, invigorate his heart, remove 
the water from his tissues, relieve his pains, prevent nose- 
bleed, etc. 

Instead of asking him to relax himself and go to sleep, 
as I do in office treatment, I simply request him to retire 
to some quiet place in the house at a certain hour each 
day. I agree with him to do the same thing — repair to 
a quiet place, take a recumbent posture and close my 
eyes. I request him to remain in a quiet condition with 
me for five minutes ; to keep his thoughts upon me, and I 
will think of him, and in five minutes we will be en rap- 
port with each other. I now ask him to repeat with me the 
duplicate suggestions which I furnish him, and we repeat 
these suggestions in concert, exactly as I gave them to 
him here in my office, where I commenced by saying: 
1 'Every function of your body is coming into harmony 
with one another." We repeat these suggestions in har- 
mony, over and over, for fifteen minutes, finishing by 
repeating the last suggestions, "Now when you wake up 



—115— 

you will feel better," etc., but instead of the words 
"wake up," I have it read/ 'When I get up I will feel 
better," etc. 

When the patient can do so, I have him memorize the 
duplicate suggestions, and repeat them with his eyes 
closed ; but if he cannot do this, I have him open his eyes 
and read them, after he has had his eyes closed for five 
minutes. If, from any cause, the patient cannot read the 
suggestions I furnish him, then I let him have some friend 
read them to him while he is in a recumbent posture 
and eyes closed. The results are the same, if the work is 
properly done, and in the right spirit. 

In a special address that I prepare and send to all of 
my distant patients, I fully explain the influence of sug- 
gestion, friendly suggestions, adverse suggestions, auto- 
suggestion, etc., and I furnish every patient with one of 
my books, "Suggestion," without expense. 

Now, think of it, a patient a thousand miles distant, 
in a recumbent posture, eyes closed, suffering from some 
disease that all ordinary means have failed to cure. He 
is earnestly engaged with me in a persistant effort for 
relief and cure. As he lies upon the couch with his eyes 
closed and mind fixed upon me, he realizes that I am at 
that very moment, in the same posture, earnestly engag- 
ed in his behalf; that I am with him in thought and soul 
and he sensibly feels my presence. Some of these pa- 
tients express wonder at the strange feelings of gladness, 
relief and strength that comes over them while taking 
these treatments. While it is true that some patients are 
more successfully treated by present, verbal suggestion, 
it is an absolute fact that others enjoy more relief from 
distant treatment ; they seem to feel and realize that there 
is more soul in it. 

There is a certain class of patients that I can treat 
very successfully at a distance. They write me in detail 
and tell me all about their own condition. I write them 



— 116 — 

fully in reply, and tell them their cases so plainly that 
they feel and realize that I know more about them and 
their ailments than they themselves ever dreamed of; 
and so I do. I know that I can cure them, and tell them 
so. And, as above stated, I request them to fix their 
mind upon me as their helper, and to assume that I am, 
at the very moment agreed upon, with them in heart and 
soul, earnestly engaged in projecting healthful thoughts 
to their subjective minds, which is literally true; this 
places us en rapport with each other, and they realize that 
our souls are really in communion for a common purpose, 
which promptly brings all the functions of their bodies 
into perfect harmony, and restores them to natural con- 
ditions of health. This method of treatment faithfully 
carried out with me by patients who are earnest, trust- 
ful and presevering, will and does succeed in producing 
marvelous cures. 

People who cannot comprehend the practice of distant 
healing and who do not know how to project thoughts 
in an effective manner, may assail our methods, call them 
illegitimate, accuse us of deception, declare that we can- 
not transmit thoughts, and exhort us to cling to the lone 
practice of verbal suggestion, and to give up distant 
healing as a part of our business ; but what does this all 
signify? what do we care for this? Why, when I started 
to St. Louis, twenty-five years ago, to make it my future 
home for the practice of medicine, one of my best friends 
told me that I could not succeed in that great city. In 
very polite language, I told him that he was not telling 
the truth — that I knew better; that I was just as well 
prepared to practice medicine in St. Louis as hundreds 
of others that were doing well there, and that what other 
men had done I could do also, and that I had determined 
to go, and that I should make a success of it too. Time 
has settled that dispute, and it will not take nearly as 
long to forever hide in oblivion the adverse opinions 



—117— 

held and advocated by men and women who dispute the 
honesty and effectiveness of our methods of distant heal- 
ing, for a demonstrated truth to-day will be a truth to- 
morrow and forever, and truth will prevail against all 
opposition and ignorance. 

If we listen to and heed all the adverse suggestions 
coming to us from ignorant sources, we can never suc- 
ceed in anything. We declare that we can and do cure 
diseases at a distance, and we teach our students to do 
the same thing; but people who have more confidence 
in proprietary medicine shops than they have in sugges- 
tion, should not attempt to learn this practice until they 
have changed their minds, for it requires confidence and 
sincerity to lift people from the negative conditions of 
sin, disease, degradation, and despair. 

No matter what people may say about it, or what 
opinions they may entertain, there is no gainsaying the 
reality of cures that are made at a distance. We make 
them and we cure diseases in this and by other sug- 
gestive methods, that have baffled the skill of the best 
physicians in the land. Suggestion is a wonderful power ; 
and I repeat it, where patients have sufficient confidence 
to commence and earestly persue the treatment with me 
to the end, I can bring him en rapport with me, and can 
relieve them of any disease, by suggestion, if a cure be 
within the bounds of possibility; and I can cure a large 
per cent of patients by suggestion and mental effort at 
a distance.' ' 



—118— 



CHAPTER XII 



PSYCHOLOGY IN RELIGION. 
Its Use and Abuse 



Its Use. 



While the Bible is not a treatise on psychology nor any 
other science, yet it cannot be fully understood nor duly 
appreciated by one who is totally ignorant of the func- 
tions of the human mind. Some few are fortunate enough 
to have an intuitive insight into human nature, which, 
with a thorough knowledge of the Bible, makes the appli- 
cation easy. The successful preacher is, and must of 
necessity be, a psychologist ; not that he shall have waded 
through all of the socalled philosophy of the mind, but 
that he has either by nature or acquired knowledge of 
how to make the connection between the word of God 
and that faculty in man whose function is to weigh 
evidence. The gospel is God's power unto salvation 
only when men have been brought to such a state of belief, 
(thinking) as will result in a change of doing. Many 
preachers are splendid students of the Word and preach 
it fully, who seldom have a convert. The fault then, is 
not in the gospel, but in the manner of its presentation. 
It was in the wisdom of God that the world should be 
saved by the foolishness of preaching. The preacher who 
is cold, mechanical, matter-of-fact, I care not how logical, 



—119— 

yea, scriptural, will never turn the world upside down, by 
converting multitudes to the Lord. The most useful and 
powerful agencies in the universe are the ones mostly 
counterfeited, and, when turned in the wrong direction, 
are capable of accomplishing the most harm. Such is an 
ignorant and improper use of psychology. Psychology 
belongs to the exact sciences, though, perhaps, not yet 
old enough to take its place in the catalogue of sciences. 
It is demanding more attention at this time than at any 
previous time in the world's history. This is right. 
Physical science seems to have about reached its zenith. 
Metaphysics is demanding, and will continue to demand 
the attention of the world, until its potency and power 
are recognized both in matter and morals. That we may 
get at a sane, sensible and scientific application of it in 
religion, as well as in physical healing, is the purpose of 
this article. I shall, therefore, not attempt to confuse 
the mind of the masses who will read this book, with 
technical terms and scientific phrases. While this partic- 
ular chapter is primarily intended for the preacher, yet, 
it will be read by thousands of laymen whose only ac- 
quaintence with psychic lore is this book. 

Where do the Bible and psychology meet together and 
science and religion kiss each other? I answer, in hun- 
dreds of places, only a few of which are necessary for 
my purpose here. Have you ever tried to analyze and 
define I Thess., 5-23, "and may your spirit and soul and 
body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." Can you distinguish soul and 
spirit ? Here is a statement that man is a trinity, and the 
apostle uses three Greek words to express the fact. For 
body, sooma, for soul, psyche, and for spirit, pneuma. 
This would indicate that man is possessed of a dual men- 
tal organization. This is in perfect accord with the 
Ancient, Medieval and Modern philosophers. If soul 
and spirit are separate and distinct entities, as we be- 



—120— 

lieve, which is capable of an endless existance? It is the 
latter. It i3 the pneuma, spirit, that came from God and 
must return to Him when the body returns to its kindred 
elements. The spirit is what Paul is pleased to call the 
" inner man", and as we believe, a perfect counterpart of 
the physical body. While resident in the body it has cer- 
tain physical functions to perform relative to the body, 
which, when interferred with to such an extent that it 
cannot eliminate, takes its exit, and we call it death. 
It is to be pitied that the revisors have not made these 
distinctions in their translations of the Bible and forever 
put an end to the confusion caused by an interchangeable 
use of these entities. Much improvement has been made 
by their change, in many places, of heart, to mind. The 
custom among the Jews to take some organ of the body 
to illustrate certain mental or psychological conditions 
caused the physical fleshly organ which is the seat of 
the physical life to be used where our English word mind 
will convey the same idea, providing we consider the 
duality of the mind as heretofore stated. And right here 
let me say, that without that distinction the word heart 
cannot be used with any sense of propriety or meaning. 
The word heart, is used about 700 times in the Bible and 
in many different senses. That heart that must be pure 
to see God is the same heart that we make pure and new 
by "turning from our iniquities that they be not our 
ruin." That heart includes both soul and spirit, or 
objective and subjective minds and it cannot be under- 
stood in any other light. And now the reason, for I am 
of the firm conviction, that if we understand the mind 
better, the Bible will have a new and fuller beauty, many 
of its dark sayings will become clear and our lives will 
be more fully attuned to that of the Infinite. For the sake 
of brevity in this article, we shall not consume much 
space in a further attempt to prove the duality of the 
human mind. There are a few writers of the socalled 



—121— 

"New Thought" literature, who, in their attempt to ap- 
pear original, take the position that we have only one 
mind operating on different planes. But in all my re- 
search covering hundreds of volumes of psychic lore I 
have found no Bible students or Christians who take that 
position. As we have always in our investigation re- 
fused to consider any theory or hypothesis that will not 
harmonize all the scriptures bearing on the subject, so 
in this case, we will stay with the great apostle Paul and 
affirm that mentally man is a duality. For convenience, 
and as before indicated, we will call the soul the objec- 
tive mind, and the spirit the subjective mind, which is 
the Hudsonian hypothesis. The objective takes cogniz- 
ance of objective things through the media of the five 
physical senses and controls voluntary motion. It rea- 
sons by all processes, while the subjective mind perceives 
by intuition, is the seat of the emotions, reasons only 
by deduction, controls involuntary motion and is con- 
stantly amenable to control by the power of suggestion. 
For further explanation of the functions of both minds 
the reader is referred to Chapter II. Such, in brief, are 
the functions of that most important and intelligent 
entity, the spirit of man, capable of an existance inde- 
pendent of the body. If the reason can keep in mind 
these few normal functions of the subjective mind in his 
further perusal of this subject, he will I am sure, see 
clearly my application and the relation of psychology in 
religion. President Ashley S. Johnson, in his splendid 
book, "The Holy Spirit and the Human Mind," says 
(I quote from memory) "Any theory concerning the 
Holy Spirit in conversion, which does not take into 
consideration the human mind, is unscriptural. ' ' This 
could not be otherwise and leave man a free moral 
agent capable of exercising his own volition. Otherwise 
he would be a mere automation, unlike a being made in 
the image of his Maker, with attributes and faculties 



—122— 

differentiating him from the lower animal, which is in- 
capable of receiving a suggestion concerning a future 
life. No other animal but man is amenable to moral or 
spiritual law. Physically and morally man is the most 
complex in his constitution of all of God's creatures. 
His ability to perceive, reason and weigh evidence; and 
his constant amenability to suggestion, proves him the 
superior of his Maker's handiwork. A very much used 
though none the less true phrase that "thoughts are 
things and suggestion rules the world," will apply in 
religion with as great a degree of import, and perhaps 
more, than in any other realm. All we know, all we are 
and all we hope to be, is the direct result of suggestion. 
In the great debate between Robert Owen and Alexander 
Campbell on the Evidences of Christianity as against 
scepticism Mr. Owen took the position that the religion 
of Jesus Christ was but the off-spring and figment of the 
disordered brain of a few Galilean peasants. Mr. Camp- 
bell denied this and agreed that if his opponent could 
conceive of any new thing which had not been revealed, 
such as a third eternal state or a sixth physical sense, 
he would surrender the whole question. In other words, 
man is incapable of perceiving a thing which has not in 
some manner been suggested. At the risk of repetition 
we will here state our definition of suggestion. Sugges- 
tion is such a presentation of thoughts or ideas to the 
mind, as will result in a mental, moral or physical change. 
Now for its application in religion. Let us notice first 
the necessary conditions under which the mind of man 
is changed on any subject, be it politics, business or re- 
ligion. His attention must first be called to the matter 
under consideration. Then the proposition must be pre- 
sented which is none other than suggestion. A desire for 
the thing suggested must be had, or formed, before any 
hope of success can be expected. Expectation must also be 
created, if not already present. Thus we see that these 
three absolute prerequisites must obtain before me can 



—123— 

hope for a successful and intelligent acceptance of any 
suggestion. Since the conversion of a sinner to a saint, 
relates to both heart and life, mind and body, there 
must of necessity be a synchronous action of objective 
and subjective minds. Kemember that the subjective 
mind or spirit of man accepts without doubt or hesita- 
tion every suggestion made to it only, when not pro- 
hibited or prevented by the objective mind; hence the 
importance of first gaining the consent of the objective 
mind, which, when conceived, passes on down by auto- 
suggestion to the subjective mind the suggestion ac- 
cepted, where it is sure to be received, providing, it does 
not conflict with the moral convictions of the person, 
which have been established on a whole life of objective 
belief and practice. Now, with the above process in our 
minds, let us apply it to the occasion of the first con- 
verts to Christianity on Pentacost. A great multitude 
of Jews had gathered at Jerusalem, it was a religious, 
occasion that had called them there. They looked for a 
Messiah, they were expecting* a deliverer. Desire to be 
freed from bondage and saved from sin was pregnant. On 
the other hand many who had heard of and seen Jesus 
did not believe him to be the promised one. Their ob- 
jective minds were not satisfied with their then present 
knowledge. They must have evidence, the testimony 
must be convincing, they demanded facts, which, when 
presented to their objective minds, which alone could 
reason by the inductive method, they could classify and 
thus determine their course of action. We are told that 
"the Lord opened Lydia's heart." Here we find how it 
was accomplished. Jesus had given Peter the keys with 
which to open these closed hearts. The key holes to the 
heart are the five physical senses, especially the auditory 
and optic nerves. The conditions were favorable, the 
people were present and the preacher was prepared. 
Note the process, the preaching and the results as com- 
pared with modern times. "When the Holy Spirit had 



—124— 

confounded and amazed the multitude of devout Jews 
through these Galileans speaking to every man in his 
own tongue, while others mocking said "They are filled 
with new wine," Peter's times had now come to use the 
keys given to him by the Savior, to unlock their dark- 
ened minds. He "lifted up his voice;" he did not talk 
in monosyables so that the people could not hear him 
"on the back seats," nor jumble his words so that those 
at the front could not understand. He addressed his 
message to the people present, "Ye man of Judea and 
all ye that dwell at Jerusalem." He was after results. 
He wasted no time by the "absent treatment" system 
on the antedeluvians or gentile heathen a thousand years 
and miles away. He was so personal in that he named 
their abiding place. Hear that uplifted voice. "Be this 
known unto you," "and give ear unto my words." Peter 
may have not known much about psychology, but the 
Holy Spirit who was using him for a mouthpiece knew 
the paramount importance of attention. No man can 
hope to accomplish much by his teaching or preaching 
who fails not only to get the listening ear but the atten- 
tive mind. "He that hath ears to hear let him hear," 
said Jesus, and the writer to the Hebrews adds, "There- 
fore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things 
that were heard, lest haply we drift away from them." 
The subjective mind, "spirit" or "inner man" as Paul 
calls it, has five attributes, faculties or senses, corres- 
ponding to the five physical senses, and each dependent 
upon its predecessor for material with which to operate, 
namely, Perception, Reflection, Memory, Reason and 
Judgment. Since it is, and should be, the latter two of 
these faculties, reached in conversion, let us note the pro- 
cess of convincing reason and satisfying judgment with 
the evidence that relates to the love of God and the Son- 
ship of Jesus. Let us begin by asking the judgment, 
"where did you get your authority that Jesus is the Son 



—125— 

of God?" It replies "I got it from reason." Reason, 
where did you receive your information concerning the 
fall of man and his redemption through Jesus of Naza- 
reth? "I got it from memory." We now appeal to 
memory and its answer is ' ' I got it from reflection. ' ' We 
have now reached the top and last of these internal at- 
tributes, and await its answer. What will it say? 
Where did it receive its information? Here is where the 
trouble begins in the religious world. Here is where the 
Holy Spirit is called upon to do what God ordained man 
with an inspired message to do. Here is where the di- 
rect and abstract theories begin that so confuse the hu- 
man mind, darken counsel, makes the Holy Spirit the 
author of confusion, drive men into infidelity, divide the 
people of God and make worse than lunatics of men. 
Perception, where did you get all this testimony and in- 
formation which you have passed down to reflection and 
thus on convincing judgment that there is a God and 
that Jesus is His Son and the Savior of men? "I received 
it through hearing." I wish this answer here of per- 
ception could be written in the sky in letters set with 
stars so that all who run might read. If it could only be 
burned on the fleshly tablets of every preacher's heart 
throughout Christendom it would eliminate much that 
is nonsense and bring the millenium a century nearer. 
Not from feeling, or some state of ecstacy or elation, not 
from being psychologized by an appeal to the emotions, 
but from hearing. This is in exact accord with how faith 
is obtained. "For with the heart (both minds) man 
believeth unto righteousness." So then, faith cometh by 
hearing and hearing of the word of God." "This peoples 
heart is waxed gross, their eyes they have closed and 
their ears they have stopped, lest they see with their 
eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their 
hearts (minds) and be converted and I should heal 
them." This process, and this only, will harmonize 



—126— 

every scripture in the Book on the subject. God gives 
the sinner the attributes and through the eye and ear the 
channel by which they can be reached in a sane, sensible 
and intelligent manner. He gives the preacher a voice, 
an inspired message on his heart with a desire to make it 
known, and he is commanded to go into all the world and 
preach it. "When the world in its wisdom knew not 
God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to 
save them which believe." "It shall come to pass that 
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be 
saved ; how shall they call upon Him of whom they have 
not believed, and how shall they believe on Him of whom 
they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a 
preacher." Peter had a voice which he lifted up and a 
message to the world, but it must be heard. With at- 
tention now, eyes and ears open, he proceeds to clear 
away the charge of drunkenness, by showing that it was 
too early in the morning, after which he affirms that it 
was what their own prophet had promised, the outpour- 
ing of the Spirit of God. He then proceeds to introduce 
"Jesus of Nazareth." Notice the tact here. He did not 
call him Christ nor Lord, they were not ready for that 
yet. He first mentioned the things which "you your- 
selves also know," how that Jesus had been confirmed 
of God among them by signs and wonders and mighty 
deeds, and that they had with wicked hands crucified 
and slain Him. This needed no proof, but his next prop- 
osition that God had raised him from the dead they did 
not believe, hence his appeal to their King David. To 
convince them of this fact was Peter's purpose, and how 
well he succeeded the results show. "They were cut to 
the heart." The key had penetrated through the ob- 
jective hearing, had been received by subjective percep- 
tion and passed on down to reason and judgment. There 
was but one conclusion if these were facts which Peter 
had presented, and that was, that they were sinners and 
needed a Savior. They had transgressed the law of God 



—127— 

in an overt act as every sinner has, and when they cried 
out ''men and brethren what shall we do," they were 
told "to repent and be baptized every one of you in the 
name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins." 
The exhortation which Peter delivered is not furnished 
to us, but it followed a "doctrinal sermon" which about 
3,000 "gladly received" and were baptized, and the 
Lord added to the church daily such as were being 
saved. They did not have to repair to the "inquiry 
room" to find out what to do only to be confused, nor 
did they signify the "church of their choice" by signing 
a card. Peter held up Christ as a savior to those who 
would save themselves by obeying his commands. They 
were turned to the Lord as is evidenced by their obedi- 
ence and steadfastness in the apostles teaching, in the 
fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. 
There can arise no wrong deductions from this kind of 
preaching and the permanancy of the converts show, 
that they were not simply psychologized by an appeal to 
their sensibilities with harrowing deathbed tales of 
man's invention. There people's emotions had been 
touched by Peter's exhortation when he evidently de- 
picted the life of the "man of sorrows" and his tragic 
death and matchless love, but their reason had first been 
convinced and their judgment satisfied by the unim- 
peachable proof of Christ's Lordship. An appeal to the 
emotions first may move a man to action, but unless his 
intellect has been reached and his judgment convinced, 
no amount of emotional insanity can hold him like one 
committed to a principle. A member of the Roman 
Catholic church, or the Seventh Day Advent church, or 
the Mormon church, cannot be turned by all the psychol- 
ogizers in the universe ; no, nor will a divided Christen- 
dom ever be brought into that unity for which the Savior 
prayed until the fact that division is a sin is pressed 
home to the hearts of honest men. Let one who has been 
blinded by tradition or early teaching, who has never 



—128— 

enjoyed the full blessings of the gospel in a personal 
committal to principle, see the light, understand the truth 
and he becomes the strongest advocates of it. He be- 
comes happier now and his joy remains, because he has 
a reason which he can give "with meekness and fear to 
every man that asketh." His feet are firmly planted on 
the rock. 

Its Abuse. 

0, religion, what hast thou not suffered at the hands 
of thy friends? Ignorance is a synonym of evil. Well 
did the great apostle say, "The god of this world hath 
blinded the eyes of them who believe not, lest the glor- 
ious gospel of Christ should shine in unto them." The 
religious world needs special emphasis on Lord Bacon's 
value of a fact. While the writer has no doubts about 
the ultimate outcome and victory of the truth, he de- 
plores the credulity which characterizes so great a por- 
tion of our race in matters of religion. It is not so 
strange in this competitive age that men in the commer- 
cial world will resort to "ways that are dark and tricks 
that are vain," but when men claim to regard God, who 
have accepted the greatest, grandest charge ever com- 
mitted to mortals, that of teaching the great facts, com- 
mands and promises of the gospel, will, either ignor- 
antly or otherwise, so pervert that gospel as to confuse 
the minds of men, we can fully appreciate the force of 
the Savior's saying, "Blind leaders of the blind." A 
thing becomes none the less harmful because its abuse 
is due to ignorance, notwithstanding that the more meri- 
torious, most valuable and powerful agencies are the 
most likely to be counterfeited. There is a sane, sensi- 
ble and legitimate use of psychology in conversion, with- 
out which few would ever be turned from darkness to 
light, and from the power of satan unto God. When a 
minister, either through ignorance or actuated by any 



—129— 

other motive, resorts to a psychological force, and is in- 
capable of distinguishing between the Holy Spirit and 
the human spirit, he becomes a dangerous teacher and 
should himself be taught "the way of the Lord more 
perfectly." Some have accidentally discovered the 
mysterous key to which the human heart so easily re- 
sponds, but they do not know its name and so mistake 
the instrument for the agent. Hence the Holy Spirit is 
called upon to do in some mysterous way, what God or- 
dained the gospel to do. Jesus taught us that "the seed 
of the Kingdom was the word of God," and Paul says, 
"the gospel is God's power unto salvation to everyone 
that believeth. ' ' God will not do for man what man can 
do for himself, neither will the Holy Spirit do what he 
has promised to do, nor in any other way than the way he 
has revealed. An honest, intelligent man w T ho regards 
law would not attempt to counterfeit money, neither will 
an honest, intelligent preacher of the gospel counterfeit 
the Holy Spirit by leading his auditors to depend upon 
some mysterous, miraculous, unseen impact, when he 
knows that truth is the only key to open their darkened 
minds. Christ not creed, truth not tradition, fact not 
fable should be the motto of every man who aspires to 
be "approved unto God, a workman that needeth not be 
ashamed" by his "rightly handling the word of truth." 
One hundred years ago at Old Cane Eidge in Bourbon 
County, Kentucky, a great camp meeting was held which 
thousands of people of various faiths attended. The 
preachers were good men, they were honest, spiritual and 
withal in earnest. They wanted power. They prayed 
for power, they expected power and the power came. 
Hundreds went into "trances," many had the "jerks," 
others the "holy laugh." Such wonderful phenomena 
was never before, has not been since, nor never will be 
manifested again on this planet amongst so many intelli- 
gent people. Editors came from long distances to ob- 
serve and write it up, and they could not resist the power 
and went into trances. Sceptics and infidels came to 
scoff and were seized with the jerks. The meeting was 
adjourned for want of "food and water." These phe- 



—130— 

nomena on a much smaller scale have been manifested 
and witnessed in various places and times from then un- 
til now. But where does it succeed the best? Upon and 
among the more ignorant and psychologically suscept- 
able. Much of it can yet be seen in the "Black Belt" of 
the South among the superstitious and ignorant negroes, 
and anywhere among the same class of whites. You are 
now ready to ask what was the power, was it spirit 
power? I answer, it most certainly was, but it was no 
more the Holy Spirit than it was the spirit of Herod. It 
was their own spirits. The reason these things do not 
occur now among the more intelligent is, it lacks the 
scriptural and scientific value of a fact. At this time 
there is, in a little town in Southern Missouri, a band of 
fanatics called "Holy Rollers," who have been all sum- 
mer conducting services in a tent. They claim that God 
speaks to them directly and that the Holy Spirit baptizes 
them with power to speak with tongues and heal the 
sick. I heard a woman pray in the "unknown tongue," 
and at the risk of appearing sacriligious, I will say that 
I do not believe the Lord understood the "tongue" any 
more than the rest of us. The fact that they may be 
ever so earnest, zealous and honest, does not preclude an- 
other fact, that they are ignorant of the word of God. It 
is an extreme case of the abuse of psychology, when re- 
ligion runs riot and where the Holy Spirit of God is 
getting the credit of making monkeys out of men. It is 
in the larger and more intelligent field of modern evan- 
gelism that I desire to call your attention briefly. Twenty 
years spent in evangelism and as many in psychic re- 
search has given me an opportunity to observe a great 
many of the uses and abuses of psychology in religion 
and I have never knowingly been guilty of taking the 
advantage of the ignorance of people by an improper 
application of this science. When we consider the ex- 
tremely small proportion of real active additions to the 
churches, in proportion to the reported converts of many 
evangelists, it is appalling. That thousands of souls are 
lost to God and members lost to the churches annually, 
lies not so much in padded reports as in the confounding 



—131— 

conviction with conversion. The temptation to get ad- 
ditions regardless of permanent results is so great, that 
the average evangelist cannot or will not resist it, and 
instead of appealing to the intellect and convincing the 
judgment of the sublime principles of the gospel, he 
takes the shortest cut and works upon the emotions. Not 
one in a hundred of the average modern converts can 
give a scriptural answer why he is what he is. Notice 
the subject matter of the "sermons" of the average 
evangelist. No exposition of scripture unless it be of an 
historical character, no harmonizing of present practices 
with ancient inspired teaching, no "cutting to the 
heart," no "teaching them to observe whatever I have 
commanded you." But a disconnected, conglomerate 
mixture of mother, home and heaven stories, illustra- 
tions that are not pertinent, and oftentimes in language 
that would bring a blush of shame to the average street 
gamin. Sin is often denounced in the very strongest 
terms and the sinner made to quake with fear, a desire 
is created to flee the wrath to come, but in vain does he 
wait for a divine answer to "Lord what will thou have 
me to do?" Instead of turning them from darkness to 
light and from the power of satan unto God, they are 
left in a state of conviction and confusion as to where to 
find the Lord of light and glory. Very few of such ever 
commit themselves to God by obedience to his commands 
and take membership with His church, while the few 
who do, unless their pastor is wise and feeds them on the 
"sincere milk of the word," are not able to give a rea- 
son of the "hope they have within them," and soon 
drift away. While we boast of our facilities and ad- 
vantages of Bible study, the great mass of humanity do 
not even read the text and much less give it serious 
thought. Ignorant and gullible to the last degree, they 
become the susceptible dupes of every wind of doctrine 
and mysterous psychic influence. It is not necessary to 
affirm that the evangelist is dishonest, or that he even 
wantonly deceives the people. He may be ever so sin- 
cere and actuated by the noblest of motives, but he is 
nevertheless, a "blind leader of the blind" when he does 



—132— 

not for any reason lead his converts into the Kingdom 
with their feet firmly planted on the Rock of Ages. As 
the intellectual process is reversed, so are the motives 
which they present to impel men to action. The promise 
of this life and that which is to come should always be 
the first and supreme motive, then followed by the retri- 
bution the gospel threatens as a last resort. A person 
moved by the wrong motive, may, by conducive influences 
and favorable environments learn to love, live and obey 
to the end, but with many when the personality of the 
preacher and the enthusiasm of the occasion are gone 
find that the atmosphere is permeated with defiance to 
law, indifference to religion and that heaven is a great 
ways off and that the motive that actuated them to ac- 
tion is not strong enough to hold them. If the reports of 
many of our great meetings could be withheld for only 
one year, instead of at the closing hours of a sensational, 
emotional and enthusiastic occasion, the reputation and 
glory of the evangelist would fade away like the trailing 
glory of a fallen star. Religion is right doing and re- 
sults from right thinking, and, since the thinking is 
largely due to the leaders of thought, how important that 
we present facts and not fiction, truth and not tradition, 
faith and not feeling, the gospel and not gossip, Christ 
and not creed, that their "faith should not stand in the 
wisdom of men, but in the power of God." 0, the match- 
less power in the human voice, reinforced by a magnetic 
personalty and perfect physique. Almost divine and 
given to bring glory and honor to his maker and chosen 
to be the mouthpiece of God in speaking to the sons of 
men. What a privilege and yet what a responsibility. 
The groaning millions of God's creation are craving for 
the life more abundant, they await with breathless 
silence the answer to the yearning of their hearts,- "What 
shall the answer be?" Let us all "speak as the oracles 
of God speak," "shunning not to declare the whole 
councel of God," and right thoughts will ensue. We will 
then be of the same mind, speak the same thing, joined 
together in the same judgment, with one Lord, one faith 
and one baptism. One God who is above all, through all 
and in us all. 

LBde'lQ 



